


Queen of Kuat

by Yolashillinia



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, F/M, Revenge, Romance, Sex, Torture, Violence, sith have no chill, someone's face gets ripped off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 60,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26908645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yolashillinia/pseuds/Yolashillinia
Summary: Original sequel to My Cruel Valentine. Two years after Baras's death, the Emperor's Wrath is perfectly happy destroying rebellions that threaten the Empire and secretly marrying her officer, Commodore Quinn. Until an assassination attempt draws her into a brutal conflict for her homeworld of Kuat... Written 2017.
Relationships: Malavai Quinn/Female Sith Warrior
Kudos: 9





	1. An Irritating Interruption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [My Cruel Valentine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26693023/chapters/65110093), but Akuliina's even more of a bloodthirsty berserker dominatrix.
> 
> Once upon a time my brother helped me with plotting and logistics and tactics and stuff, so thank you brother.
> 
> Akuliina deals with adds during Jaesa's miniboss fight to the tune of [Mechanical Rhythm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZJaTo60JIs)
> 
> While writing the first draft of this chapter, I drew a [picture](http://www.adhemlenei.com/2017/02/15/wedding-tango/) of these two dancing.

Chapter 1: An Irritating Interruption

The deck shuddered under Quinn’s feet as the rebel ship scored a lucky hit through the Golden Conqueror’s shields; a small portion of the status screen lit up in red. “Divert power to starboard shields,” barked Captain Cheyomar, and the projection flickered for a moment before showing the shields reinforced in blue around the cruiser. An enemy fighter flashed past the forward viewport, pursuing and being pursued by an Imperial fighter; both the lead Imperial and the enemy fighters exploded in a cloud of glowing gas and shrapnel, rattling against the viewport; the deck shivered again. The surviving fighter veered off towards the battle off the nose of the Conqueror, searching for new targets.

“Tyrant’s Pride, accelerate to thirty percent and bring your guns to bear on the Gryzzhark,” Quinn ordered to the second ship in the fleet, aware that he was completely butchering the name of the Trandoshan ship and not caring in the slightest. It would be scrap soon enough. “Thunderbolt, three freighters are attempting to flee. You have leave to pursue.”

“Aye aye, sir!” answered the enthusiastic young captain of the Thunderbolt, and the small frigate peeled out of formation after the fleeing red dots on the scans.

Quinn surveyed what was left of the battle, hands clasped behind his back in the at ease position. Although the fleet of the Emperor’s Wrath had been numerically outnumbered, the rebel ships had been small and poorly equipped. Too, their tactics had been basic and unoriginal, and now the smallest ships had been destroyed or were fleeing, and the largest ship had been surrounded by the Wrath’s fleet with no escape. The turbolaser blasts lancing between ships were mostly the Empire’s green now, not Trandoshan gold.

“Sir, we’re receiving transmissions of surrender from the Gryzzhak,” the Conquerer’s chief comms officer, Hayna, announced, mangling the name even worse than Quinn had.

“Ignore them,” Quinn said. The Wrath had made it clear that none were to be spared. “Blast that ship into dust, Captain Cheyomar.”

“With pleasure, sir.”

If they accepted the surrender, there was all the bother of boarding and taking the crew prisoner and possibly even risking Imperial lives to save Trandoshan lives. The ship would have to be stabilized, and would give the Trandoshans an opportunity to repair it and use it again. It would also hearten the rebels into believing the Empire could be soft-hearted, that the rebellion was not the heinous crime against peace and order that it was, rather than believing that the Empire could, on occasion, be generous. It was more efficient, more effective to simply destroy them.

True, in the short run it would harden the rebels’ resolve, especially with the utter ruthlessness with which the Wrath was setting about the task of eliminating them. It might cost the Empire more resources to bring their world back to its full production capacity after the rebellion. But hardened durasteel was also more brittle after a point. The Trandoshans might have had an overblown warrior culture, but surely even they would stop before they brought genocide upon their own people. In the end, peace and order would last longer, and the wretched aliens would come to see how serving the Empire benefited everyone.

And of course, the Wrath could play a bit longer. Speaking of which… “Ensign Hayna. Open a channel to the Wrath.”

“At once, sir.”

She brandished her lightsabers at the Jedi and the Zabrak soldier, and twenty or so Trandoshan rebels behind them, as she grinned psychotically in the fire-lit twilight. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! How kind of you to invite me in!”

“You weren’t invited!” shouted the soldier. “The Empire never learns. We will never give up hope, never surrender!”

She cackled. “Fine by me.” She gestured, inviting her enemies to attack. Behind her, blaster fire flickered across the hills as her troops pressed inexorably forward, closing in swiftly on the rebel base, in the gate of which she now stood with shattered turrets around her. The Trandoshans hurled themselves at her, firing haphazardly in her direction. They were all much taller than she, solid and physically powerful. Though their aim was atrocious, their claws and jaws could easily rend her limb from limb, if they could catch her.

The Force and her lightsabers didn’t care, as she danced among them, slaughtering them all with joy, the wind washing through her white hair. The fragrance of the Dark Side hung heavy in this place, feeding upon the death and suffering that were come with her. She exhaled and her breath felt like fire, her golden eyes gleaming with exhilaration.

The Zabrak and the Jedi hadn’t moved, though the soldier dropped into a crouch, slightly behind the Jedi. But the two of them seemed determined to talk her to death as she advanced. “Can’t you see the suffering your oppression causes? Do you not realize that cruelty is doomed to failure? That freedom- hrrk!”

A golden lightsaber protruded from the soldier’s chest, as the Jedi flinched and turned, too late. Jaesa Willsaam recalled her double-bladed lightsaber back to herself and stepped from the shadows behind the rebel leaders, grinning. Her apprentice looked slightly worse for wear, her scarlet robe torn, sweat trickling through dirt and bloodstains on her face, yet her energy seemed undiminished by the long battle.

Akuliina gave her a mock-bow. “My thanks, apprentice. The mewling was growing boring.”

“He was right,” the Jedi said, speaking for the first time. “The Empire is built upon fallacies. I have heard you are an intelligent woman, have you not realized this?”

Akuliina frowned at her, ignoring the obvious pandering. “It’s irrelevant. I’m not postponing your execution to argue philosophy when you’re wrong.” Of course she considered the ideologies of the Empire and the Sith very carefully. Whether or not she felt any pull towards the Light – though she’d never admit she actually felt any pull at all – she certainly wasn’t about to give up her purpose in the middle of a battle. Neither was the Jedi, she was sure. What did the other hope to gain from such a foolish tactic?

The Jedi closed her eyes, then opened them and gazed in determination at her. “Though you defeat us today, we are not alone on this planet. The rebellion will continue until Trandosha is free, until Kashyyyk is free, until the galaxy is free from the Empire.”

Akuliina gave a heady sigh. “Ah, that desperate, brave idealism. I _adore_ it. Let’s see how long you last, shall we?”

“Master, please, may I?” Jaesa begged, twirling her lightsaber.

“If you fail, you’ll have to hope in the Jedi’s mercy, because you’ll get none from me,” Akuliina told her, ignoring the Jedi’s attempt to speak.

“If I fail, I don’t deserve the Jedi’s mercy,” Jaesa said scornfully.

Akuliina felt her commlink vibrate and waved her on, sheathing her lightsabers. “Enjoy yourself, apprentice. I have to take this call.”

“Yessss,” Jaesa hissed, bounding into action.

“Wrath of the Emperor!” cried the Jedi, tragically heroic behind her green lightsaber, but Akuliina interrupted her again.

“If you can’t defeat my apprentice, how can you even hope to defeat me? Yes, Quinn?” She wanted to smile fondly at the little holoprojection she held in her hand, but forbore just yet. Behind her, Jaesa and the Jedi lunged at each other, sabers crashing together heatedly. The Jedi was trying _so hard_. It amused her.

“May I inquire as to your status, my lady?” Now, that did make her smile. So polite.

“The battle’s pretty well done,” she said, glancing around at the remains of the rebel base. “My soldiers are securing it now, and Jaesa’s just dealing with the Jedi leader. I’m sure she’ll be finished shortly. If not, things might actually get interesting. I trust the space battle is in hand?”

“Their flagship has just been destroyed, my lady. The Empire has complete control of Trandosha’s space.”

“Excellent,” she said, turning to watch Jaesa fight. What was taking her so long? Was the Jedi that competent?

It seemed that the Jedi and her apprentice were about evenly matched, and she had to restrain herself from joining the fray. Her heart beat faster just watching. Jaesa was wild, almost sloppy – but every vicious move had a purpose. The Jedi was silent, concentrating, very aware that she was fighting for her life and that there was small chance she would win. And yet she did not seem completely despairing… the Jedi Code supporting her, or some other hope?

A door to the right slid open and a dozen or so soldiers dashed out, taking up a firing line behind a duracrete half-cover divider; she couldn’t quite see them well from her current position behind a crate. “Ythal! We’ll cover your retreat! Quickly!”

“Brave souls!” the Jedi cried, turning towards them to run. “Have the others evacuated?”

“A moment, Commodore,” Akuliina said to her commlink. “Things got interesting.”

“Don’t you run from me!” Jaesa shrieked, blocking the volley the rebels fired at her, darting towards cover of her own – a dozen _accurate_ blaster rifles at once was more than even a competent Sith could reasonably deal with without the heaviest of power armour. The fire was getting heavier, and she was forced to keep her head down. The Jedi was almost to the door and to what might dubiously be called safety for the time being.

Akuliina set down her commlink where it could observe the fight, then stepped from behind cover and drew both her lightsabers. There was a brief hiccup in the firing line as they suddenly recognized there were two Sith they had to deal with, and the hitherto unnoticed one was very close to them. Then the fire turned on her. “Go, Jaesa!” Akuliina dove forward, somersaulting over their cover. One man she held in a vice grip, a mortal shield between her and the rifle-fire, and while he clawed at his chest, trying to loosen her invisible hand, she charged. An electric sizzle from the door told her that Jaesa had collided with her target once again.

She flowed between laser blasts like fire along oil, cutting down her enemies one by one. They’d come to die, to sacrifice themselves to save their Jedi leader, and she was glad to oblige them. She wondered if the Jedi had hoped they would come die for her.

As the last one fell headless, a pained cry from the duel behind her drew her attention. If it was Jaesa, she would let the Jedi get away just to spite her apprentice.

It wasn’t Jaesa. It was the Jedi, slowly crumpling to the ground with a mortal injury and a missing arm. Akuliina raised an eyebrow at her apprentice. “Finally.” She returned to her commlink, sauntering in a teasing fashion. “I believe all substantial resistance has ended here.”

“Congratulations, my lady. May I inquire as to your current plans?”

“I shall return to the Conqueror and leave Jaesa in command here. I don’t want to spend all my fun at once.” Her mood light, she winked saucily at the camera, regardless of the fact that her bridge crew was watching. They were used to her ways by now.

He made no indication that he noticed. “I shall prepare for your arrival, my lady.” She hung up.

“Jaesa!” she called.

“Yes, my lord,” Jaesa said, breaking off her contemplation of the corpses littering the ground, and bowing to her.

“You are in command. Turn the base upside down and bring me any leads on further pockets of insurrection.”

“I hear and obey, my lord,” Jaesa said gleefully, and bounded away.

She reflected as she marched towards her personal troop carrier. They had made a very good start on containing the rebellion that had erupted under Darth Grashmal’s nose; the man was at present attempting to explain his incompetence to the Dark Council. She doubted he would live through the interview. Hours after Grashmal’s departure, before her arrival, the Trandoshans had grown bold enough to launch ships and seize the disorganized Imperial ships remaining over the planet, coupled with poorly-disguised Republic reinforcements. Quinn had seen to that, and now it was up to her to crush the rebellion still fermenting on the ground. With strategic use of the fleet’s bombardment when necessary. She was the chaos that destroyed chaos, allowing the Empire to build proper order in her wake.

They had gotten lucky, in this first engagement. Her fleet had come out of hyperspace unexpectedly for the rebels, and caught wind of activity at what had turned out to be a major base of operations, from the size and the equipment she had observed and wrecked. Cleaning up the rest would be far more difficult. The Trandoshans – or more likely, their outside help, the lizards were far too stupid to think of such things – had organized well, and the Jedi Jaesa had killed was probably not the mastermind behind the whole mess. She hoped the analysts that Jaesa was now terrorizing would turn up something, that the rebellion wasn’t organized into air-tight cells. Otherwise, this could take months, even for someone as unsubtle as her. Though collateral damage meant little to her besides instilling more fear of the Empire, too much and the entire government would collapse. She was there to punish, yes, but also simply to discipline the foolish wilful people who hadn’t yet submitted to the inevitable. And, of course, to remove all Republic or Jedi presence from the world.

She wondered if it was a good thing or a bad thing that the fighting hadn’t spilled over to the much more valuable world of Kashyyyk. The Wookiees were far superior as slaves, being more deft and intelligent. If Kashyyyk began to fight the Empire’s grip as well… even she wasn’t completely keen on warring against that death-trap of a world. Fortunately, Moff Adubar had kept a firm grip thus far.

At least the rebellion was something to keep her entertained while the politicians decided whether they were at war with the Republic or not again.

She appeared briefly on the bridge to check on the official damage reports and to offer the crew a brief word of congratulation, then retired to her chambers. “I expect you there shortly to discuss tomorrow’s strategy.”

And so he was, taking the somewhat convoluted path down an elevator, through the corridor running half the ship’s length, and taking the elevator that led to the antechamber to her quarters. His own room was opposite hers, but much smaller and he rarely used it anyway. He couldn’t help glancing to the left as he reached her door; there was a small guard station, which Broonmark had made over into a nest of sorts. Apparently he didn’t need much space. The Talz stared back with four unblinking eyes and Quinn quickly looked away as the door opened.

She met him with a smile and a glass of brandy. For herself she had her usual Chandrilan white. “Something to celebrate a good beginning,” she said, and he accepted it with a slight bow. She’d already showered, and no longer smelled of blood and smoke, but of shampoo and florals.

Her chambers were two stories tall, with her bed and refresher and other personal facilities on the balcony, and an office and lounge on the lower floor. The two-story wall facing the balcony was a holographic screen capable of displaying a somewhat staggering quantity of information, or of displaying images that pleased her. At the moment, it showed a view of the planet turning slowly below the Conqueror as it orbited.

The unofficial debriefing went on much longer than the official one, as they slowly made their way together to the balcony, drinking and talking. At length she grew quiet, golden eyes half-lidded in contentment like a manka cat, leaning on the balcony railing watching the planet revolve, the glow of industry and Imperial fortresses sparkling up at them. Her hair was a little longer than when they’d first met, still ghostly white and silky; he wanted to run his fingers through it. Later. She’d let him do that later. It was difficult to believe it had been two years since they’d met already. She’d matured much, while remaining the passionate firebrand she’d always been. And despite their rocky, awkward start, his loyalty to her now was forever unshakable. His loyalty… and other feelings as well.

He set down his brandy and fought the urge to clear his throat. But he did swallow first. There were other matters on his mind than Trandosha, and had been for a while. Something always arose, there was hardly ever a moment’s peace in their lives, and he was done with putting it off. “Perhaps this is not the time to bring this up, but I fear there will _be_ no better time. My lady, there’s something very important I want to ask you.”

She didn’t even look away from the view. “Marry me, Quinn.”

He coughed an embarrassed laugh and slipped an arm around her slender waist, drawing her to his side; she leaned against him willingly, letting him support her. “Sometimes I forget how difficult it is to surprise you.”

Now she did glance at him, red lips curved in mischievous amusement. “I never forget how adorable you are when flustered. But I meant it.”

“As did I… if you hadn’t asked first. I accept. With pleasure.” She interrupted his thought process by pulling his face down to kiss her. “When? Where?” were his first breathless questions when she released him.

“Excellent questions,” she said, eyes unfocusing in consideration. “Victory Day is approaching. Even if the rebellion is not completely quashed by then, I think it would be acceptable to return to the capital for a day or two – in the Fury – to celebrate certain things. It will attract far less attention then, to have guests about. You shan’t be a target as my husband. I forbid it.”

With anyone else, that might have been a joke, but she had enough strength of will – and paranoia – it might just become reality. “As you wish. I’d like my mother to be there, if that isn’t inconvenient.”

“I’d like my parents present as well,” she said. “It will be delightfully awkward. I haven’t seen them since I left home.”

He hesitated to ask his next question, but of course she felt it. “I don’t suppose they approve of you, no. You are not Sith by any means. But it doesn’t matter. I’d rather have someone less powerful and more trustworthy. I can be reasonably sure you’re not going to turn on me in the near future.” She didn’t trust anyone completely, not even him. But he considered it an honour that he was closer than most. “Though I am concerned about one thing…”

“What’s that?”

“They might try to kill you to give me more motivation to kill them… or to encourage me to get a ‘proper’ husband. You’ll have to make it clear that you can take care of yourself, and that you’re more valuable alive than dead.”

He exhaled and leaned his cheek against her head. “How morbid. Your family is odd.”

“They’re hawkbatshit insane. But with a purpose. We’re Sith. That’s how it is.”

“I know. I’m not backing down. That’s a tall order, however. Must I fight both of them at once, or will they allow me to go one-on-one?”

She cackled. “You’re very brave for volunteering, but it would be rude of them to attack you as my guests. You needn’t fear anything while they’re here, and I think we can work out a suitable demonstration. We’ll go hunting with Jaesa or something of the like.”

“I shall trust you on that. You know them best.”

She turned to look up at him, golden eyes fierce. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone take you away from me. You’re mine.”

“I am yours.”

“And I am yours,” she whispered, and he kissed her.

So on Victory Day, they had returned to Dromund Kaas with the closest members of her cohort. The guest list was not long: Mrs. Nadila Quinn, Count and Countess Volkov, Lord Vowrawn, who was officiating, Major Ovech, and of course Vette, Jaesa, Pierce, and even Broonmark. Vette was actually quite pretty in an iridescent silver jumpsuit – as if she’d ever wear a skirt – which contrasted beautifully with her blue skin. Quinn was in his dress uniform, and Akuliina… She was dazzling, glittering, magnetic in crimson silk studded with tiny flashing jewels, her demeanour superlatively elegant, a gracious smile ever on her face, but always with a smirk lurking behind it. He wondered when she had gotten the dress. He hadn’t seen it before.

His mother was there first, and Akuliina greeted her with a nod. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I hope you know your son is one of the finest officers in the Empire.”

“Thank you, my lord,” his mother said, bowing low. “I am honoured to be here.”

She still looked a little nervous, as he stepped forward to clasp both her hands. “I’m so happy you could come, Mother. I’ve long wished to introduce you.” He smiled, trying to put her at ease. His mother had been nervous around Sith for a very long time, ever since his father had died. But this was different. She had no reason to be afraid here. After all he’d told her about Akuliina… he’d hoped she would be more relaxed here.

“Thank you, Malavai,” she said, and her expression lightened as she looked him over. “Congratulations as well on your promotion. You look very sharp in your new uniform.”

“Thank you, I’ve desired you to see it since my promotion.” Akuliina had advanced his promotions with almost unseemly haste, as if to make up for lost time, culminating in his current station as Commodore and commander of her personal fleet. His mother knew he’d been promoted, but she didn’t normally have access to a holocomm on her regular station. The best he’d been able to do was to send her a holostill.

She turned back to Akuliina. “Thank you for allowing me to come, my lord. It isn’t often I am permitted to return to Dromund Kaas.”

Akuliina waved carelessly. “Think nothing of it. If you transfer to my command, I’ll station you wherever you wish.”

“Thank you, my lord, but I don’t want to upset my current master.”

“My mother is a brilliant analyst,” Quinn explained to Akuliina. “She taught me that precision and attention to detail are the most important parts of a job done well. I can imagine whoever her superiors are now will find it difficult to part with her.”

Akuliina’s eyes gleamed, but her words were teasing. “I’ll pay you double whatever they are giving you.”

“M-my lord-”

“She’s mostly joking,” Quinn translated for his mother’s benefit, but then the next guests arrived.

Major Ovech had a handshake for him, while Akuliina greeted Vowrawn. “Congratulations, Quinn.”

“Thank you, Ovech.”

“And thank you for inviting me. Small party. I understand.” He tapped the side of his nose, and Quinn nodded.

“Ah, and here is the Scourge of Trandosha,” Vowrawn was greeting Akuliina.

Akuliina rolled her eyes. “Please tell me that’s not something actually said about me now.”

“Oh, but it is. I think Lord Ravage is more fond of it than ‘Emperor’s Wrath’.”

She scoffed. “It’s a pathetic title. No one actually cares about Trandosha, it’s simply necessary to be taken care of.”

“Do you believe we are wasting your talents? More importantly, I understand I’m to finally meet your parents.”

“You’ve been looking forward to them that much?” Akuliina teased scornfully, prodding the much older Sith with scarlet-gloved fingers. “What about me? After all I’ve done for you. Killing Baras, killing Dartinyan, killing Grestor… I’ve done a lot of killing for you.”

“And here I thought _I_ helped _you_ kill them,” Vowrawn teased back, looming over her until the prodding ceased. “You’re a delight as always. But your parents?”

“Are late,” Akuliina said. “Patience is a Jedi virtue, but all the impatience in the world won’t get them here faster. Cool your afterburners, they won’t miss this occasion for all the crystals on Ilum. Well… perhaps they would.”

“They’d be foolish not to,” Jaesa said. “But if that’s the case, I’d really hope they’d notify us so we can help ourse- help out.”

“Nice save,” Vette said a little sarcastically. “In the meantime, there’s drinks. What’s your pleasure?”

“Alcohol solves everything, especially absent family,” Pierce said. “I’ll have a Rodian spice.”

It was only a few minutes later that Akuliina glanced towards the apartment’s hangar-garage, though he didn’t see anything coming in to land yet. “Ah, here they are,” she murmured. A few minutes after that, a couple appeared in the door to the lounge, and Akuliina swept over to greet them. Her father was white haired, but her mother was small and dark haired and dark skinned. Both were dressed in dark but expensive-looking robes, with circlets on their heads. He was surprised by how affectionate the greeting between parents and daughter was, before they drew apart and were all cool poise and aristocratic elegance again. He wondered how out of place he was, how presumptuous it must seem that he was to be her husband when he hadn’t a drop of noble blood in him. He had excellent manners, but she came from a different sphere than he did entirely.

She turned to him as Jaesa brought them drinks. “Father, Mother, here is Commodore Quinn. Quinn, my parents Count Anotin and Countess Mareet.”

He bowed low. “My lords.”

He straightened to find himself under intense scrutiny. “Well, he’s good-looking at least, darling,” Countess Mareet said at last.

“And respectful,” said Count Anotin. “He knows his place, doesn’t he?”

“His place is at my side,” Akuliina countered with the most cultured bristle he’d ever seen from anyone. “I have good reasons for my choice and I’ll thank you not to do anything to him without cause.” Such a rude response compared to how she’d spoken to everyone else… but then again, they presented the greatest threat, and they knew it, and he knew it.

“Ah, speaking of which, when are you going to claim your inheritance, Akuliina darling?” asked the countess, a subject which seemed to interest her far more anyway. “Don’t make us wait forever.”

Her father nodded. “You have the strength to do it now.”

“But not the time or the attention to spare,” Akuliina said coolly, giving them an arch look. “Please, Mother. I’m the Emperor’s Wrath. I have a galaxy to help the Dark Council manage. Why should a mere fraction of Kuat direct that much of my attention?” She smirked. “You’re taking care of it for me just fine. When you’re old and useless, I’ll come to fulfill my duty, never fear.”

Countess Mareet snorted in a way that reminded him of her daughter. “If we’re truly old and useless, it will be no true challenge. Don’t make excuses, darling. You ought to kill us soon.”

Akuliina rolled her eyes, while his own mother’s eyes widened in fear and misgiving. “They’re perfectly valid reasons, Mother. You’re still useful to the Empire. I _could_ kill you any time I please. But there’s no point to it.”

“I notice you do not yet have other planets of your own,” Count Anotin said. “I hope it’s not for lack of resources. Even the County of Volkov is richer than the entirety of many other planets.”

“Oh, no, do not mistake me,” Akuliina said. “I am a public servant, after all.” Quinn tried not to snort. Even when they role-played, she couldn’t do a servant, and neither of them were happy on the rare occasion when she tried. The other way around was much better. “I have all the funding, fleets, or armies I could desire. I pick what I want and do what no one else in the Empire _can_ do.”

“What about the one you’re pacifying now?” Countess Mareet said. “Isn’t its recent master dead? Planets grant prestige, darling.”

“Trandosha? Prestige?” Akuliina waved dismissively. “I’d rather have the entire Kashyyyk system or nothing, than just Trandosha. Besides, it’s not part of my long-term plan.”

“You’re not going to abandon tradition, I hope?” Count Anotin said mildly, swirling his drink.

“It really depends on whether the tradition has use,” Akuliina said. “Those who cling too closely to it are often revealed in the end to be hypocrites.”

“You are, of course, referring to Darth Thanaton,” Vowrawn put in.

“Thanaton, Ondorru, Dartinyan – interesting that so many of them are dead,” Akuliina said. “But yes, Thanaton believed traditions held power in themselves, while Lord Murlesson believes they are more weaknesses than strengths, and proved he was more correct than Thanaton when he killed him.”

“And you?” Vowrawn asked, looking entertained.

“I think somewhere in the middle, if you haven’t guessed already,” Akuliina said. “Without referencing the forms and structures developed over our history, the Sith will descend into anarchy. But following them blindly is the height of foolishness – and many do. I’m sure _you_ of all people know that better than I. My family’s tradition has its purpose, but it would be a waste to invoke it _now_. I haven’t forgotten my great-grandmother’s story. But until I need a comfortable spot to retire, it’s really not important to the Empire.”

“So you’re not going to kill us today,” Count Anotin said.

“I have bigger fish to fry,” Akuliina said with a careless gesture. “Besides, that would be _rude_.”

Countess Mareet shook her head with a sigh. “Such a disappointment. I suppose we must wait a while longer.”

Akuliina chuckled politely. “I do wish you could find something else to obsess over. When I do kill you, are you going to assume spirit form and pester me about heirs next?”

“It would only be logical,” Count Anotin said, smiling.

“Unless you send your heirs to kill us,” Countess Mareet said.

“That would be cowardly,” Akuliina said. “I have every reason to do it myself. But come, I haven’t introduced you to anyone else yet.”

As she did so, and Vowrawn began to monopolize their attention, his mother sidled up to him. “Are you sure about this, Malavai?” she asked in a very low voice, but he could see the tension building in her again.

“You mean, oughtn’t I to kill myself now and save her the trouble later?” he asked, and she flinched. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s all right, Mother. Really.” Besides the fact that he couldn’t possibly back out on his wedding day, he didn’t _want_ to in the slightest. “I know how she seems, but please trust me. I want nothing else than to serve her this way.”

“But what they were saying…”

“That they expect her to kill them? I wasn’t expecting it to come up so openly, but I’ve known about it for a long time. It’s… based in Sith tradition, I understand, akin to how apprentices often supplant their masters. However, it’s true that she has no intention of following through on that in the near future, and it wouldn’t have any bearing on me.”

“Would she expect her children to kill you?”

“No. If they were Sith, it would be no challenge and therefore pointless.” He’d checked on that, delicately, while they drew up the marriage documents together. He would still have married her, regardless. He wished that she didn’t have this horrifying tradition to live – or die to – herself, but with luck or the Force they would have a long life together beforehand.

Besides, it was Akuliina. Defeating her was exceedingly difficult, and would be even for her own child.

“You remember your father…”

“Father’s situation was completely different.” Although he still wasn’t sure of the specifics. But he was quite certain his father had not been romantically involved with his male master.

“Does she… love you?” she asked, looking uncertain whether she should be hopeful or afraid of the answer.

“Yes. And I love her. Do not fear for me, I beg you. Marrying her is no more risk than serving her as I do already.” He remembered dimly a text-based message he’d once sent to Akuliina. “I’d rather die young by her side, even by her hands, than old anywhere else.”

“You were always a reckless boy,” she murmured, and said no more.

The ceremony was short, and they exchanged vows and rings and a relatively chaste kiss, and then the real socializing could begin. It lasted for several hours, and was still going on when Akuliina whispered in Vette’s ear, tugged Quinn away alone to the upper living area, put on some music, and seized his hands to dance.

Quinn enjoyed ballroom dancing; he didn’t understand and hated the strange jumping-up-and-down sort of club dancing that was so popular in the cantinas and bars nowadays. Akuliina of course had been tutored in dancing, though she liked the club stuff as well… and he had to admit that when she did that he couldn’t take his eyes off her. But what else was new? The dance they danced now was smouldering and sensuous, and for them alone. He had been feeling tense making small talk with all the Sith lords, despite his assurances to his mother, and greatly appreciated his wife’s selfishness in dragging him off for a moment to themselves.

Her eyes never left his, and he felt flushed under her stare, as her will undressed him figuratively. But he wasn’t completely defenceless against her intensity, meeting her gaze with determination, pulling her against him, spinning her away, tugging her back when she turned as if to leave. He ran a hand in a seemingly casual fashion up her spine and her back arched into the next move.

The dance could sum up their relationship as a whole, if he cared to analyze it. To an observer, it might seem the physicality of the thing was all that possessed the two of them, that she didn’t even particularly care about him while he was nothing but attentive to her. But it was a technically demanding dance that commanded a great deal of trust, especially from her of him, that he wouldn’t drop her, that he would always support her, even while she was the one upon whom all eyes must be fixed.

Not that he was the only one she could dance with. She was fearless; she’d danced with others before. But with him, she could relax and enjoy the dance to its fullest. And he adored her for it.

He dipped her as she wrapped a leg around him, and crimson silk rode up her thigh. Suddenly the humidity in the room rose about ten percent. _Emperor’s breath_ …

The music had come to its triumphant end. She was raising herself to stand on her own feet, he was trying not to breathe too hard from exertion and the fact that her cleavage seemed to be stealing his oxygen, when suddenly she stiffened, eyes wide and unfocused, and then she grabbed his arm with an unbreakable grip and sprinted for the window. He made a noise of surprised protest, staggering after her, almost tripping over his own long legs; she flung out her hand at the window and it shattered, the glass parting and falling strangely to allow them passage. By now he’d recovered his footing, but she wasn’t stopping, racing madly for the edge of the balcony. She certainly wasn’t stopping to answer questions.

“Hold on to me!” she shouted, tugging him even closer and wrapping an arm around him. They reached the edge of the balcony and she leaped impossibly far, her skirt fluttering around them, the Force no doubt aiding her to defy gravity-

The apartment behind them exploded in a massive fireball.


	2. Birth of a Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not related to this chapter but I gotta show off my [sexy Quinn fanart](http://www.adhemlenei.com/2017/04/01/happy-fanservice-day-2017-ft-quinn/).

Chapter 2: Birth of a Storm

It was too quick for him to feel terror, and adrenaline left no room for such feelings anyway. The heat from the explosion washed over them, along with a fine shower of shrapnel; his ears were ringing. And still they were flying and beginning to fall…

He was jolted nearly out of Akuliina’s grip as she seized hold of the wing of a speeder that had braked hard to watch the explosion. The speeder rocked and the startled pilot accelerated hard, but Akuliina was holding on like grim death.

The pilot braked again, less abruptly, and opened the window as Akuliina pulled herself and Quinn safely onto the wing, clutching onto a handhold that was _supposed_ to be for safely-grounded maintenance use only. “I’m terribly sorry, my lord! Are you-”

Quicker than Quinn could see, Akuliina had yanked a piece of solid rubble from her still-exploding apartment out of the air with the Force and held it before her, bare moments before a shot echoed between the skyscrapers, and another one, and a third. All of Quinn’s senses snapped into focus, catching sight of the barrel of the sniper rifle silhouetted atop a distant building. The sniper blasts splashed against the makeshift shield, sending up small clouds of smoke. She didn’t have her lightsabers, she had given them to Vette before the party. He took a firm grip on the cockpit cowling and pulling out his small, nigh-useless dress uniform pistol. It was nowhere near as good as his regular, heavily modified, pistol, and the distance was very great, but if he could see the sniper…

He snapped off a couple shots, knowing already that they would probably miss. He didn’t have much charge in the pistol, either. The sniper rifle cracked again, and the pilot sagged suddenly with a smoking crater in her chest, and the speeder took an accelerating nose-dive.

Akuliina made a growl of frustration and tightened her grip on him. “Quinn! Hold on!” He took one more hasty shot that might or might not have struck true, before the speeder dropped away and he couldn’t see the sniper anymore.

The ground was rushing up towards them, a small boulevard between skyscrapers. Pedestrians were looking at the apartment, pointing, sheltering from falling rubble; ground-speeders were pulled over with their warning lights on. “On the count of three,” Akuliina said, “we jump.”

He saw what she was aiming for, a large fountain that looked deep enough to break their fall. Concerns rushed through his brain – would they die or be injured from hitting the water? At this speed, could she accurately hit her target? What if their attackers electrocuted the water?

“One… two…” The last was sheer Sith-inspired paranoia, and it was too late to worry about it anyway. “Three!” She jumped, and again that strange feeling of inhuman power was in her leap. He wrapped both arms around her and took a deep breath.

They crashed into the water and broke apart to swim separately to the surface. Some distance down the street, the speeder finally slammed into the ground and exploded. Even now, she was in a rush, flipping out of the pond, helping him out, and running to the side of the street under an overhang that would most likely prevent the sniper or other snipers from targeting them again.

She took a deep and slightly shuddering breath, dripping wet, her hair clinging to her head and neck. He ran a hand through his own hair to keep it out of his eyes. Glancing around quickly at the other alarmed pedestrians, assessing them for threat, she spoke in a low voice, though whether it was to him or to herself he couldn’t tell. “Can’t go to the Sanctum, it might not be safe… We must return under cover.” She was fidgeting with her hands, and he noticed that she’d already shifted her wedding ring to her index finger – just an ornament now. His own was hidden under his glove.

Everything was happening at once; some people were hurrying up to them, asking if they were all right and if they required assistance, more speeders were stopping and their occupants jumping out to do the same – or simply gawk. He went for his commlink, though it stuck in the soaking pocket of his uniform long enough to be annoying. “Lieutenant Slinte. Four squads, dropships, Wrath’s apartment complex. There is at least one sniper in the area.”

“Already on it, sir. Lieutenant Pierce contacted me a moment ago to inform me of the emergency. Squads are on their way. Recon is on high alert.”

“Carry on.”

Akuliina had pulled out her own commlink, ignoring the gathering crowd, and had begun to jog back towards her apartment building using the covered sidewalk; he fell into step beside her as the crowd parted before her. Her wet skirt swished loudly and she had to hold it up with one hand to not trip on it. The silk was probably ruined. “Apprentice. Are you there?” He caught sight of her back and shoulders and tried not to react. She was bleeding in several places, shards of glass still sticking in her copper skin. No doubt he was too, though his uniform had protected him a little, but he couldn’t feel it yet.

“Jaesa’s… a little busy right now!” Vette’s voice responded; she sounded strained, and there was the sound of wind in the background. “Trying to make sure we don’t all fall to our deaths.”

“We?”

“Me, her, and your mother. The guys all went downstairs to check out, I dunno, guy stuff, and suddenly Jaesa and your mother got this funny look, and then next thing I know, we’re halfway down the outside of the building, holding on with _lightsabers_ – I mean, what!? – and the entire apartment is _gone_ – Oh my gosh, are you and Quinn all right!?”

“We’re fine,” Akuliina assured her, glancing at him with a flicker of amusement that vanished quickly. “Between the three of you, I’m sure you can figure out how to not die. Must call others now.”

“Okay, by-!” Vette was cut off as Akuliina hung up and immediately changed frequencies.

“Vowrawn.”

“Akuliina! See, my dear count? Nothing to worry about.”

“Not for lack of trying on their part. I’m pleased that you’re unharmed. I don’t suppose you know anything about this?”

“Not in the slightest. But Mrs. Quinn has already settled into an analyst’s station down here in your offices…”

“So that’s where you are,” Akuliina said. “Has she found anything?”

“Not yet – wait, I think she has.”

“Data from the spaceport indicates a ship in low orbit over Kaas City is gaining altitude abruptly,” said his mother’s voice, slightly distant, as if Vowrawn was holding the commlink towards her. “It is also sending a long-range transmission. I’ll attempt to intercept it.”

“Quinn, call the spaceport, tell them to stop that ship now!”

“Yes, my lady.” Even if the ship was innocent and leaving by coincidence, it couldn’t hurt to be too careful. And though the fleet was still around Trandosha, the name of the Emperor’s Wrath held much power here on Dromund Kaas. She didn’t abuse it on a regular basis, but the fact was if she wanted ships to move, they moved; if she wanted resources reallocated, they were reallocated; if she wanted all left-handed guards’ schedules shifted forward by an hour, they shifted. Unless someone else on the Dark Council disagreed, and then there were private disputes that he was glad not to be privy to. He called the spaceport.

A military speeder pulled up beside them, and emergency vehicles zoomed past towards the apartment and towards the crashed speeder further down the street. “My lord! Can we serve you?”

“I’ll take a lift back to my apartment,” she said, and hopped in, Quinn behind her. “Do you have any information on the perpetrators yet?”

“No, my lord.”

“What about the bomb in my apartment?” she snarled, eyes snapping. “Where did that come from?”

“W-we’re looking into it, my lord! We’ll inform you as soon as we have any data.”

It had only been about 90 seconds since the apartment blew up in the first place. But it was good to have reassurance that Kaas City was mobilizing. Of course, such a brazen attack couldn’t go unchecked.

They came to the entrance to the building and Akuliina kicked open the door and rushed out before the vehicle had even come to a stop. The dropships were approaching, he could hear, and one of them was already circling the top of the building. Five of her soldiers rushed to meet her but she brushed them aside, ignoring the elevator, and stormed into the emergency stairwell. He guessed at her feelings – being trapped inside a small moving tube was not where she wanted to be right now. He wasn’t fond of stairs, though.

“How did you know the speeder off the balcony would be there?” he asked as they began the long ascent, while he still had breath.

“I didn’t,” she said, as if that was obvious. “I also didn’t know if my arm would remain intact in grabbing it. But between absolutely dying in a massive fireball and slightly less of a chance of falling to my death, I should think the choice clear.”

“Indeed. I am grateful that you chose to save me as well.”

She gave him a derisive snort that told him ‘of course I’m not going to leave behind my husband when I’ve just married him’, but which would mean nothing to the guards following them.

She burst through the door into her administrative level, 95 stories above street level. “Vowrawn! Father! What do you have for me?” Quinn had fallen slightly behind and moved up behind her, breathing hard, resisting the urge to put his head down between his knees. His legs were burning and he waved to an aide for some water, for himself and for Akuliina, whether she realized she needed it or not. The soldiers were faring only slightly better. The office was filled with urgent chatter, and running footsteps.

“A bit of news,” Vowrawn said pleasantly. “The ship has made the jump into hyperspace, unfortunately, but-” he raised a hand to forestall Akuliina’s darkening expression “-your mother-in-law managed to capture their transmission. The decryptors are working on it now.”

“And your mother is safe,” Count Anotin said. “With your apprentice and your pet. Why are you wet?”

“Good,” Akuliina said. “Wouldn’t do for her to die before facing her destiny. I’m wet because I’m alive. Any casualties?”

“Still determining that,” Pierce said, appearing from the elevator antechamber. “Looks like the top three floors are completely gone, along with any guards and servants up there. Which means most of them. Also Broonmark has been badly wounded; he’s being moved to a kolto tank now.”

“My lord!” A call came from a security officer at a nearby console. “We’ve recovered security footage of the roof before the explosion.”

“Show me.” Akuliina leaned over the man’s shoulder; at the back of the room, the emergency stairwell door opened and Jaesa, Mareet, and Vette hurried in. Vette ran to Akuliina and hugged her.

“I’m so glad you’re all right! I was so scared.”

“It’s fine,” Akuliina said, and Vette let go of her and stepped back as she beckoned to her apprentice. “Jaesa, look at this. I thought you vetted every person who came to the apartment today?”

“I did!” Jaesa said defensively. “I never saw this man, though. Who is he?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Akuliina said, and reached over the officer to tap through the other security cameras at a slightly earlier timestamp. “Has any of this footage been tampered with? Have any consoles been hacked or forced?”

“I-I’ll get analysis on it now, my lord,” stammered the officer. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise you.”

“Good. Pierce, make an investigation into the staff as well. I want to know if he had inside help. Where is this man now? Did he die in the explosion, too? If he has not, I want him found, now!” The tempo of the room picked up yet again; Pierce began growling orders at his team, and they ran.

“My lord,” Nadila Quinn spoke up, approaching briskly. “The message I intercepted has been decoded. This way, please.”

“Quick work,” Akuliina said, following her to the other console. The equipment communicated directly with her offices at the Sith Sanctum, where the majority of her staff worked. However, she also maintained a substantial set-up in her own apartment building directly under her apartment. Pierce, for instance, trained her most elite guard there rather than at the Sanctum. Any assault from below would have to pass through a heavy layer of security before reaching her. But as they’d seen, that was only one avenue of attack.

The message was voice only. “Boss, it’s hard to say, but we think the trap failed.”

“What do you mean, hard to say?” said another voice, a deep smooth voice, and Akuliina grew rigid.

“The bomb was planted as planned, we set it off when she was up there, as planned, but she jumped out the window seconds before detonation. Our sniper nearly got her when she landed on a speeder, but her navy officer shot him. It’s possible she crashed with the speeder, but it’s hard to believe that would kill the Emperor’s Wrath.” It was gratifying to know his last shot had been accurate, though it was partly luck, despite his skills.

“No. She’s alive. Don’t bother coming back to base. All this has done is alert her. You’ll only be paid half for this.” The message ended.

“Mercenaries?” Quinn said. “Who was that voice?”

“It’s Evryn,” Akuliina growled. “The one who got away, and not in a good way…”

He blinked at her. “Your former lover?” The third of five, if he recalled correctly.

“Yes, exactly. Son of Lord Konris Kadolan, also of Kuat. Another Sith, perhaps not as strong in the Force as I am, but still good with a lightsaber. He used me to secure a certain alliance between his father and another noble, then disappeared before I could kill him.”

“Surely he does not know that…” Quinn began, then stopped. There were those present who were not in on their relationship.

Akuliina waved a hand dismissively. “As if the bastard needs to know about that to have a reason to try to kill me. Though to have the gall to attack me on Victory Day… I must wonder if he knew anything else.”

Count Anotin nodded. “Perhaps you know, Commodore, that our family is among the most prominent on Kuat. While we accept Akuliina’s excuse that she is too busy with the Dark Council to attend to the politics of her homeworld, I doubt others are so perceptive. And the Kadolan house is only second to us in power.”

“A highly unnuanced take on my job, but yes,” Akuliina said. “What is he doing now? If he thinks his survival hinges on my death, he’s correct, but there must be more to it than that.” She began to move towards the tactical side of the room, which was more open, more comfortable to talk in, and Quinn followed her. The rest of her companions and guests also followed, less his mother, who returned to a console to continue working on what intel she could.

“Oh, did you not know?” Count Anotin said. “He’s returned to Kuat. His father died suddenly, and whether he returned to take his place, or whether he killed him in order to take his place, no one knows. He’s proven very popular among the younger nobles.”

“That’s news, but not enough,” Akuliina said. “Why did he return? What is he after?”

“That I can tell you,” Vowrawn said. “I’m sure you were busy planning your party, but I noted with interest that a certain Lord Kadolan declared a kaggath with Lord Calamit earlier today – Lord Calamit is a personal friend of mine, you understand. The timing is poor on his part; he should have attempted to eliminate other potential rivals before declaring, but the situation seems clear.”

Akuliina growled. “Mother, Father, you must return home and keep me informed of the situation. I don’t have time to spare for his nonsense, but an insult of this magnitude I cannot ignore. And I will not let that bastard rule my home planet for even a second, even if he didn’t try to kill me.”

“The other Sith will not take kindly to interrupting a kaggath,” Vowrawn warned her.

“The Emperor’s Wrath is not taking kindly to having an attempt made on her, and doesn’t care about the timing of pointless announcements,” Akuliina retorted. “If necessary, I’ll declare my own kaggath. But really kaggaths are simply a waste of resources, especially in wartime, _which_ , may I remind you, we are on the verge of yet again.”

“You’re not suggesting the Sith ought to cooperate unconditionally, do you?” teased Countess Mareet.

Akuliina snorted. “Hardly. But leave the fleets out of it. They have better things to do.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Quinn muttered under his breath.

Countess Mareet shook her head, her black ringlets of hair shaking about her face. “We go on a brief pleasure trip and the whole planet falls apart.”

“And not only should we provide Akuliina with the intel she needs, but we must keep our allocation of ship production stable as well,” Count Anotin said to his wife. “We must support Calamit against the instigator of this conflict and the betrayer of our daughter, but even more importantly, we must ensure the Empire doesn’t suffer for Kadolan’s arrogance.”

Akuliina smiled briefly at her parents. “You are among the finest Sith in the Empire. We need those ships to fight the Republic. Thank you.” _She thanked someone? How shocking_. The smile transformed into a predatory smile of malice. “I will follow you so that I can kill him finally. Quinn, inform Captain Cheyomar that I will be delayed in returning to Trandosha.”

“Yes, my lady. We will be going to Kuat in the Fury?”

She glanced sharply at him. “I was under the impression you would return to Trandosha to command in my stead.”

“My place is at your side.” Yes, he was probably more use to the Empire on Trandosha… unless she wandered headlong into a trap, or something else that would cause him to regret it for the rest of his life. And they’d just married, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight now. She was his _wife_.

She glared at him. “Fine. You may come, Commodore. Jaesa, Pierce, Vette… I assume Broonmark is not well enough to travel.”

“Aye, he got knocked about by the blast, was almost crushed under rubble. Wouldn’t want to feel his headache when he wakes up,” Pierce said.

“I will be keeping my distance,” Vowrawn said. “This seems a squabble that has little to do with me.”

“No,” Akuliina agreed. “This will be a brief distraction from my real work. Major Ovech, you as well – I expect utter discretion.”

“You have my word, my lord.” Ovech saluted to her. “If there is any way I can be of assistance while I am still on Dromund Kaas, however, I would be happy to be put to work.”

“You have my thanks,” Quinn said. “We appreciate it greatly.” And his mother’s work; he would thank her later. She truly didn’t have to volunteer her expertise; her master was on the entire other side of the galaxy and had almost nothing to do with the Emperor’s Wrath. Which was probably safer for her, all things considered.

“Is there anything else you can tell me about home?” Akuliina said to her parents.

“Calamit is still in power, but he’s suspicious of Evryn’s return as well. I don’t think Evryn’s been to court one time in the last two months.”

“Two months?” Akuliina cried. “And you never told me!?”

“You never call, darling,” said the countess. “It would have been the first thing we told you.”

Akuliina glanced away with a rueful smile. “Very well. I know I don’t speak to you often enough. I’ve been busy.”

“We know,” Countess Mareet said gently. “But you might still call once in a while.”

“Speaking of your work, we never told you about your present,” the count said. “Do you remember the ships we own in the Kuat Defense Force?”

“Yes, the Glory of Volkov, Terror of Volkov, and the Rage of Volkov.” She blinked at her father, her face blank in a way that preluded great surprise. “Don’t tell me you’re…”

“The fighter-carrier Rage of Volkov is now yours to command,” said her father.

Like the sun rising, joy and excitement blossomed on her face. “Oh! That is wonderful news.”

“I understand you’re quite knowledgeable about vessels of all types, Commodore,” Count Anotin said, turning to him. “I assure you they’re all kept in top condition, and I just had the Rage completely overhauled for just this occasion. While the three are intended to remain as a set, I understand my daughter’s been a little bit lacking in fighter support for her battles.”

Quinn bowed low. “It’s an honour; I’m very grateful.”

“It’s perfect,” Akuliina said, her sparkling expression reminding him of one of his previous girlfriends on being given an expensive new dress. He was always amused and gratified at what pleased her enough to make her act girlishly – armies, ships, his undying loyalty…

“I’m sure you’ll put it to good use,” Count Anotin said. “I hear great things about your actions against this lizard rebellion. But if you want the other two in the set, you’ll need to claim your inheritance.”

“And leave Kuat undefended?” Akuliina asked, mildly indignant. “The House of Volkov must pull her weight, Father. I’m surprised you would grant me even the Rage to begin with.”

“If you’re not needing me, I’ll set about gathering intel and preparing for departure tomorrow,” Quinn said to Akuliina. Really, she ought to set off tonight, but it wasn’t realistic, with the amount of work to be done. “You should head to medical and have your wounds looked at.” Tiny trickles of blood had flowed down from the cuts in her shoulders, dying the silk a dark shade of crimson.

She blinked at him as if she had completely forgotten about it. “Right. Those. You should, too.”

He hesitated only a moment. “Yes, my lady.” If shrapnel had cut through his uniform, there was no sense putting off getting it taken care of. He wanted to throw himself into work, but if he managed to hurt himself further, that was no good.

When he saw her again, she was covered in synthskin patches, but still wearing the slowly-drying silk dress. He wondered why; he’d changed into a regular dry uniform. He returned to the administration centre and told an aide to begin forwarding everything he could find on Evryn Kadolan.

What he learned disturbed him. The Sith was very good at assembling forces discreetly, and had clearly been planning this coup attempt for a long time. Intel on his forces and resources had been extremely sparse until just now; for many years, it seemed, he had laid so low some sources had claimed he was dead. But the news reports were pouring in now for those who cared to read them. Kadolan had seized several large vessels that had been in production in the shipyards, manning them with a combination of fresh trainees from Carida and volunteers from Kuat itself.

The last gave him pause. Count Anotin had said Kadolan was popular among the younger nobles. If he had considerable support among the local population, he might actually win his fight in the long run, and that would be bad for Akuliina, who as far as he knew was not perceived to have any particular attachment to her homeworld. He was among the few who knew she did not return so that she would not have to fulfill her dreadful duty to her parents, but even if the reason were known her absence probably did not help her cause in opposing Kadolan. Quinn would have to be very careful in advising Akuliina’s plan of attack.

Akuliina was hovering about the office, inspiring nervousness where she went. He waved her over and told her what he’d found, and she frowned in vexation. “Yes, Evryn can be charismatic when he wants to be. He even fooled me for a while. I was sixteen… but that’s no excuse.”

He thought it was a reasonable excuse. “What happened? If I may ask.”

She grimaced and looked away. “We met at court; he charmed me into being his girlfriend. I asked if he’d come with me to the Autumn Moon Garden Dance. He asked if I’d introduce him to Feuseldt Kuat. I did. His father married her. He never did come with me to the dance.”

“He disappeared?”

“Vanished as if he’d never existed. Smart move on his part; I’d have cut his balls off before his head if I found him. Now that seven years have passed and he’s attacked me and mine on Victory Day, I’m going to carve him apart slowly before feeding him to a terentatek.” She looked darkly into the distance, yet there was something beneath the vehemence, some struggle, that he wasn’t privy to.

Best not to inquire too deeply, really. “Why did he want to be introduced to Feuseldt Kuat? Who is she?”

“She’s the eldest daughter of one of the other powerful noble houses of Kuat. We were acquaintances, but she was very reclusive. I’m sure without me, Evryn would never have met her. But I don’t know why he needed to meet her at all.”

“Hmm,” he said, and filed it away mentally in case it was important later. “Why did you never ask me to the Autumn Moon Garden Dance?” he asked in a low voice, that the staff around wouldn’t be able to hear.

She smirked and answered in the same tone. “Because I wasn’t planning to return to Kuat for a long time, dear.” He chuckled and treasured the rare endearment.

In Lord Calamit’s near-pitch black throne room, a tone chimed, surprisingly melodious in the large space. Near the throne, something stirred in the dark, moving forward until lit by the red floor lighting in the centre of the room. “Yes? Who is calling?” The voice was old, raspy, male.

“Akuliina Volkova, the Emperor’s Wrath,” said a dispassionate droid voice.

“I will answer,” said Calamit, raising the light level in the room slightly. He was bent and withered, though he forwent a cane, but his frame beneath his simple black tunic showed he had been tall and physically strong once.

Once. He had ruled Kuat for forty years and had left behind all need for physical confrontation. The Force was all he needed now to ensure his will, and his cunning to play the warring nobles against each other, that none of them amassed enough power to oust him no matter how old he became.

The holoprojector flickered and buzzed before resolving into an image of a small, slender young woman, a delicate flower dressed in a fanciful, sensuous gown. No doubt she had been indulging on Victory Day as many young Sith did. She was young, after all, and hadn’t learned to focus her concentration properly yet, despite all the fire in her eyes. “Lord Calamit.”

“Lord Akuliina. What might I do for the Emperor’s Wrath?”

“Evryn Kadolan has gravely insulted me,” she said, her eyes flashing though her demeanour remained perfectly poised. “I am returning to Kuat to personally see him dealt with. I have no interest in you, or in alliance with you, but I give you fair warning: if I find him before you do, he will die by my hand, your kaggath be hanged.”

“I understand perfectly,” Calamit said, bowing sardonically. The girl wouldn’t know the difference. “I shall await news of his death with great eagerness. Good day to you.”

She terminated the call, and he turned back to the black depths of his lair, considering. She said she wasn’t interested in challenging him, but only a fool would believe that at face value. She’d shown some code of honour in dealing with the Republic, with the Hutts, in dealing with the Empire’s own traitors, but there were so many ways she could attack him ‘honourably’. Kill Kadolan and then declare her own kaggath, for instance. Though that wouldn’t go well with the Dark Council, to interrupt one kaggath and then declare another, even if the report that had come to him earlier today suggested she had just cause to do so. Kadolan had been sloppy, after all.

No, the only thing to assume was that she would be coming to involve herself in the battle for Kuat’s power. She couldn’t help it, after all. She was a Sith. And Kuat must hold some interest for her, being as it was her homeworld.

And though she lacked cunning, experience, and finesse, she had enough raw power in the Force and prowess in lightsaber combat that she could easily hold her own against both of them. He himself was past lightsabers, but he knew better than to underestimate them. And her Commodore was clever, he might give her enough of an edge to win. “Droid.”

“Here, sire.”

“Instruct an acolyte on Dromund Kaas to locate Lord Akuliina’s personal vessel, then plant a homing beacon on it. Then, send the frequency of the beacon to Kadolan in secret without revealing it was I who sent it.”

“Yes, sire.”

Calamit settled himself on his throne in satisfaction. If the Force listened to him, the lesser of his enemies would destroy the greater, and then he could clean up at his leisure.

“It’s three in the morning,” Akuliina said at last, leaning over his desk. He’d been looking over the damage to the top of the building, and wondering who would be called to fix it. Such things were not his expertise. The apartment was completely obliterated, a charred pile of twisted girders and jagged shards of walls, and it still shocked him. Right, Akuliina was speaking to him. “Delegate someone else to deal with everything. Call up Agent Elshinix if you have to. You need your sleep.”

 _What about you?_ he wanted to ask, but she was twelve years younger than him. She didn’t care about missing a couple hours. Or if she did, her pride would never allow her to admit it.

And he was tired, which surprised him; his eyes tired from staring at holoscreens, his eyelids heavy, the muscles he’d used in their escape and the stairwell stiffening up. Even caf couldn’t help him now. He hadn’t noticed while he was in the thick of analysis and research, but now that she had said the word ‘sleep’, he could feel a yawn building in his jaw. He restrained it with an effort. “As my lady wishes.”

His mother had left not long ago; she was an analyst, but she was also a guest, and he’d convinced her to rest with the promise that he would rest soon too. Ovech had retired. Even Jaesa had shambled off some time ago. The entire staff shift in the office had changed without him consciously noticing. The only ones left were the Count and Countess, and they approached Akuliina and spoke with her softly before they also departed, and Akuliina crooked a finger at him to follow her.

She led him back down the stairs – his legs protested at bending so – and to an unused apartment on the floor that she reserved for guests. They were nice, but not as luxurious as her normal chambers had been. That mattered little to either of them, however; he’d seen Akuliina sleep on bare ground on Voss, without even a camp mattress or a blanket. And he’d been used to far plainer fare on Balmorra or even on the Fury.

After he heard the door close and lock, he felt slim arms slip around his waist and a head leaning against his back. “You are mine,” she purred.

He smiled. “Indeed I am. Forever, officially.” It felt like the wedding had been days ago already, but the gold ring was still heavy on his finger under his glove.

“And I am yours,” she said, much more softly, so quiet he almost didn’t hear it. He turned in her arms, bending down to kiss her. It was special when she let down her shields enough to confess her affection to him with words.

They were long, slow kisses, but the heat was building, as it was wont to do when Akuliina was involved… until she herself pulled away. “You’re supposed to be getting ready for bed.”

He repressed a quip about smothering and sat on the edge of the bed, undoing his boots and setting them down neatly under the bed, removing the dress belt and his gloves, setting the ring down carefully on the bedside table and undoing the collar and front of his dress jacket before holding out his arms to her. She hadn’t been idle, removing her jewellery and make-up and her own boots and gloves before hitting the light switch and bounding to him, settling herself in his lap, resting her head against his shoulder and nuzzling him contentedly.

He was happy. It was ridiculous, that he could honestly say he was happy to be married to the Emperor’s Wrath herself, after such a tumultuous, chaotic evening, but to see her happy and satisfied, to feel her resting in his arms… She wasn’t the Wrath in this moment, and while he was always awestruck by the Wrath, he loved Akuliina. He loved this woman, who was both super-human and deeply, humanly flawed, who well-nigh abused him while offering him all the fulfillment he could ever ask for.

She stirred and glanced up at him. “I do hope you’re not too tired. My sarlacc wants to eat your kor’slug before we sleep.”

An incredulous and oddly giggly laugh burst from him. “Congratulations; I do believe that is the least sexy thing you have ever said to me.”

She pouted at him. “It’s not as unsexy as ‘jawa kneecaps’.”

“That’s supposed to be unsexy. That’s the point of a safeword.”

She pouted harder. “Are you going to have sex with me or not!?”

He chuckled. It was a dangerous game he played sometimes, not answering her immediately. But the results were usually worth it. “I suppose I’m not completely exhausted.” His hands were wandering now, one resting on the curve of her slender waist, the other brushing against her soft, full breast before slowly drifting downwards, slowly dragging up the hem of her skirt. “Tell me, does your sarlacc have tentacles? Or teeth? Should I be worried?”

Her answering smile was triumphant and more than a little predatory, and she pushed his jacket completely off his shoulders before unbuckling his pants belt and whipping it away. “Why should I tell you? I thought you thrived on danger.”

“I do. But I never charge into it blindly.” Like she did, often in the name of ‘fun’.

She moaned. “Oh Force… I want you to tear this dress off me and take me hard.”

The last part wouldn’t be difficult, but he hesitated over the first part. The crimson Denebrillian star silk and sparkling Corusca gems had to be ridiculously expensive, even after it had been slashed with glass fragments and then soaked in the pond. And now she was just asking him to rip it?

She huffed impatiently, sliding her hands under his undershirt, along the skin of his belly. “It’s already ruined, and I kept it on specifically for this. Qu- Malavai, if you don’t have this shredded in the next five seconds, you’re sleeping on the couch.”

“Can’t have that, can we?” he asked, his voice deep and soft, and she shuddered. And he moved. The fine silk gave way easily in his grasp as he tore open the front of the bodice, and what was left of both their clothes was rapidly discarded, and her legs were clamped around him like a vice, her fingers digging into his shoulders. His tongue was delving into her mouth, almost forced out again by her vigorous counterattack, and then she bit his lip and he responded by pushing her down harder. And she responded by pushing back, fighting against him until she was on top, biting at his shoulders and collarbone as he pulled her hips down.

Her skin was so smooth against him, under his hands, even with all the scars layered on it. She always felt indescribable, incredible, but there was something different tonight. It wasn’t birth control, or lack thereof – she’d never asked him to use protection, and when he’d inquired about it, she dismissed the issue, saying she had it managed. The clear answer to the difference was that it must be true: marriage did change a relationship.

When his senses returned to normal, she was stretched out beside him, and he heard the best sound in the universe – the contented sighs of a deeply satisfied woman. He rolled over to embrace her, and she melted into his arms, a sleepy smile on her face. He was about to fall asleep, too; nothing could have kept him awake at this point.

“’Night,” he murmured, resting his chin on her head.

“’Night,” she whispered back into his chest.

Akuliina woke as the sky grew light; Quinn was still sleeping soundly beside her. She watched him for a while, reveling in the fact that he really was hers now, body and soul, that he had sworn himself as close to her as it was possible to be. Her omnipresent paranoia was quiet when it came to him; he had no reason to betray her now unless she gave him one. She… trusted him. She trusted him as much as she loved him. That was why she’d sworn herself to him, given up just a little bit of her freedom, willingly, for him. There might come a day when she needed to take it back, and he would probably give it to her. But that was not a day she particularly cared to think about now.

She rolled over to look at the chrono and suppressed a sigh. She’d have to wake him soon so he could get back to work. He was never truly happy unless he was at work. Or tied up in her bed, but that was another matter. But she wasn’t done observing him yet. He looked serious in his sleep, yet his dark brows were relaxed. His black hair was all over the place and somehow that was completely adorable. His long nose, his high cheekbones, his birthmark, his full lips – everywhere seemed a potential target for her kisses.

She indulged, leaning forward and kissing the end of his nose. His forehead scrunched up at that, and slowly his deep blue eyes fluttered open. Force, he was gorgeous. Even if she hadn’t been able to trust him, she wouldn’t kick him out of her bed until he betrayed her. And since she could trust him implicitly, her heart was painfully full of her feelings and she wanted to smother him in them. But that might be a bit much for him when he’d just woken. He was a lot older than her. Old man, she thought teasingly at him.

He smiled a tiny smile. “Good morning.”

“Indeed,” she responded with her own smile.

He yawned and stretched, shifting the bed under her, beginning to sit up. “Should see what the analysts turned up…” His accent was blurred with sleep.

“Relax,” she said soothingly, pulling him close and smushing his face into her chest, into her cleavage, indulging in _some_ of that smothering. Restraint was a taboo word among Sith, after all. The skin on his back was smooth under her arms, but the hair of his chest was rough against her belly. “While we should rise soon, there’s no law in the galaxy that says we have to instantly. And in fact I will hurt you if you leave now. It’s still our wedding night.”

She felt him reluctantly let the tension drain from his shoulders, his gut, but he chuckled into her breasts as his arms slid around her waist. “Understood, my lady.”

She stuck out her tongue at him, and he glanced up and caught sight of it, and struggled free enough to devour her mouth with kisses.

In the early afternoon, their preparations to depart were completed, and Akuliina and her companions made their way to the Kaas City spaceport. The Count and Countess had already left in their own private yacht, which would probably arrive rather more quickly than the Fury – the yacht was smaller and the engines newer, the latest pinnacle of Kuati engineering. They were going to have to make a stop partway to their destination, and arrived at the orbital station of a little-known planet to refuel after four days.

There should have been no way anyone knew they were there. There should have been no reason for a battle cruiser to be stationed at this planet, too insignificant for either the Empire or the Republic to claim, but a cruiser there was, aggressively approaching the station, turbolasers primed.

Seconds after they’d docked, the first volley struck the station, rocking it and vapourizing a full wing. Quinn shouted in surprise before he recovered himself, reaching instinctively for the shield controls. “Strap in, please,” he said into the intercomm, disengaging the docking clamps. “The station is under attack.” He couldn’t help the confused tension leaking into his voice.

As he opened the throttle, it became apparent that it wasn’t the station, but they themselves who were under attack. The cruiser left the burning husk of the station and came in their direction, and he juked and weaved around subsequent volleys. He was a good pilot, and knew how to use the ship to her fullest potential, but the Fury wasn’t a tiny nimble fighter. Their best chance was to run for the planet and escape later. Akuliina came running into the cockpit, bracing herself against his manoeuvres. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know, but they’re coming for the Fury,” he said. “Strap in, please.”

“Evryn really doesn’t want me interfering, does he,” she muttered, reaching for her command seat-

A laser blast struck the Fury, tearing through the shields and jolting her from her course, and before he could correct it, something exploded in the rear of the ship. Akuliina fell with a cry, and he clung to the controls with gritted teeth. The instruments confirmed his guess: one of the engines had been struck, and they were going to crash on that planet.

Lasers were still flashing past them, and their unpredictable descent was aiding them now, but he still felt a slow creeping crawl of panic into his throat as he realized he wasn’t going to be able to pull them out of this one with skill alone.


	3. Living Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you take away the Force, what’s left?
> 
> Major Smuggler cameo, because Risha and Vette need a reunion! I dunno if this ever happens ingame so it’s happening here and now!

Chapter 3: Living Death

When he came to, he found himself looking through the cockpit viewport at an angle into a night-dark, tangled jungle. So they’d remained intact in their crash. Hadn’t exploded into smithereens. His ribs were bruised under the crash harness, and he probably had bad whiplash, but he was alive.

Slowly he undid the harness and turned to stand – and froze in horror. A white-haired figure lay sprawled on the floor, motionless. She hadn’t made it to her seat. “Akuliina!” He pushed through the aches of his body urgently, kneeling beside her. _Emperor, let her have been spared_ …

She was breathing, shallowly, but there was blood on the side of her head. _Please, please, please_. He wasn’t one for begging – except when she made him – but he pleaded with the universe now. _Don’t let her die now_. If only because he was too selfish to forgive himself if she did.

There was a whirring, and 2V-R8 stepped into the cockpit. “Are you unhurt- oh!”

“Go fetch a medical scanner,” Quinn ordered it. He couldn’t move her until he could ascertain the state of her skull and spine.

“Yes, Master Quinn.”

Vette must have crossed paths with the droid, as she was next in the cockpit. “Are you all right- oh gosh. How can I help?”

Quinn glanced at Akuliina’s body, at the black leaf-covered viewport, and frowned, taking stock of the situation. They were downed on a backwater planet he knew nothing about, and the hostiles were probably still out there. They needed to leave precipitously if at all possible. “Download everything we have about this planet. Then begin downloading essential data into datapads, then wipe the ship’s computer.”

“O-okay?” She hadn’t expected that, he could tell, but she grabbed a datapad from the locker in the corner and moved to the computer.

“Are the others unharmed?” Were they able to strap in?

“Yeah, I think so. They’ll be up here in a minute, I’m sure-”

Here was the droid with the med-scanner, and Pierce behind it. “I knew it would be too good to be true that the scanner’d be for you.”

Quinn didn’t even roll his eyes at the jab. “Get out the emergency gear. We’re going to leave the ship before enemies find us.”

Pierce brightened. “Righty-o. By the way, Jaesa appears to be having a major melt-down.”

Quinn glanced up from the scanner and frowned. A major melt-down from the most unstable person on the ship, and he hadn’t heard sound of a tantrum? “I’ll see to her after I’ve helped Lord Akuliina up.” Her skull was sound. She probably had a concussion, but the only short-term damage was largely superficial, thank goodness. He could probably move her, carefully, to her chamber until they were ready to leave, at which point, if she hadn’t awoken…

One thing at a time. He scooped her up. “2V, assist Vette.” They’d have to destroy the droid before they left. It had served them well on the Fury, but it would be slow and clumsy in the forest and it was just a droid.

He carried Akuliina carefully through the sloping ship to her room and paused in the main hold. Jaesa hadn’t undone her crash harness yet, staring blankly at her hands extended in front of her. They were shaking. “Jaesa?”

She didn’t answer, so he continued to Akuliina’s room and laid her down. She could rest while he got everything else organized. He had no idea how much time they had left before someone attacked them here. He was going to operate under the assumption that it was ‘not much’.

She looked so vulnerable, so fragile, nothing like her usual self. If he’d only… No, his reflexes had failed him, and that was the truth of it. There wasn’t anything he could have done short of ‘be inhumanly perfect’ and also ‘be luckier’.

All right. Vette was dealing with the computer. Pierce would be getting out the emergency supplies – portable shelters, camping gear, food and water. Akuliina was resting in a more comfortable place. He had a few moments to try to deal with Jaesa. He re-entered the main hold.

Jaesa hadn’t moved. He stopped in front of her. “Jaesa.” No response. “Jaesa Willsaam!”

She started and looked up, and he didn’t miss the flicker of fear that crossed her face. Why would she be afraid of him? She was always going on about how weak he was, how pathetic, how large a stick was up his ass, and only half the time she bothered to keep it behind his back. “What did- how did- I can’t-”

“We need to leave the Fury before enemies come,” he said. “I need you to gather whatever’s necessary from the medbay.”

“I-I-I c-c-can’t feel-”

He blinked and frowned. Whatever was wrong was important. “Can’t feel what?” If she had been paralyzed in the crash, that could be a severe issue.

Jaesa’s face worked and twitched, a silent struggle against… something. “The Force… has… abandoned me.”

Ah. That was indeed important, but… “I’m afraid we can’t worry about that now. We must prepare to leave.”

“Can’t worry about that now?” Jaesa screeched, lunging for him, restrained by her crash harness. She ripped it off with cries of frustration, considerably less fluid than she normally was, and came at him with her bare hands. “Can’t worry about that now? This is my _life_ , you gutter-crawling worm!”

He stepped back, letting her come, reminding himself to remain collected. If she didn’t have the Force, theoretically he could restrain her as easily as anyone else. Perhaps more easily, if she normally relied on the Force more than her physical reflexes.

She was upon him, fingers reaching for his throat, and somehow he caught her wrist and flipped her over backwards, hand-to-hand exercises drilled into him long ago still sharp. She slammed into the floor – gently, he wasn’t a jerk – and after a brief moment of shock, began scrabbling to get up and attack him again. He wasn’t letting her do that, attempting to pin her down with his knee. “Jaesa. Listen to me. We are all in danger, Lord Akuliina most of all. I need you to remain in control despite this problem and follow orders.”

Jaesa glared balefully at him, dark hair spilling over her face, but stopped struggling. But he could tell she was even more upset than before, that she hadn’t been able to assault him – that he, a non-Sith, had taken her down easily. After a few moments, she closed her eyes and finally mastered her hissing breathing – though her gaze was still a pinched glare. “Fine. What did you want me to do?”

He tried not to breath a sigh of relief as he released her. “Pack up the medbay. We’re leaving the Fury.”

“Fine. Commodore.”

“And get me a kolto patch; Lord Akuliina’s been injured.”

She sullenly vanished into the medbay, and a kolto patch came flying out of it towards him. He caught it and returned to Akuliina. They’d have to destroy what was left of the ship, perhaps try to make it look like she had exploded on impact and killed all aboard. And suddenly that idea was painful. The Fury was a beautiful ship; she had been his home for several years, the place he’d fallen in love with Akuliina, the place he’d first made love to Akuliina – or she’d made love to him, to be more accurate – a swift shelter against the dangers of the galaxy.

But the Fury was broken now, crippled, smashed – it would cost as much to repair as buying a whole new ship. Cold-blooded numbers suggested destroying her to deny her and her knowledge to the enemy would be the best course of action.

Still, he mused as he dragged the desk chair to Akuliina’s bedside and applied the bandage, that didn’t mean it would be easy emotionally. Akuliina might reject this decision entirely. And if she did, he wouldn’t be displeased, even though mission security was at stake. But this was the last time he’d be in this room either way.

Her eyelids fluttered without opening, and she frowned and groaned. He leaned forward. “Akuliina?”

She groaned again without opening her eyes, one hand reaching up to her forehead. “Nnng… Quinn… what’s happened?”

“We’re safe for the moment, my lady. We’ve crashed on this planet. But we need to leave before enemies come to investigate.”

“Understood.” Her eyes fluttered open and she began trying to sit up, rather woozily. He reached forward to help her up, she caught sight of him – and froze in… shock? Terror? She backed away from him with that look on her face, eyes wide, and he felt it stab him in the heart. How could she be afraid of _him_?

“My lady?”

“Q-Quinn… are you… really there?”

He held out his arms. “I’m really here.” He didn’t know what else to say.

She slowly crept towards him, hand outstretched, as if she doubted her eyes. She made fumbling contact with his hand like a blind person and froze again, staring into his eyes. He wanted to cry at the look in hers. “Akuliina.” He reached for her, to hold her in his arms.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, harshly, backing away again, all her shields slamming into place, shutting him out completely.

She loved to be touched – correction, she loved for him to touch her. That she would deny him now… “Is it… Is it the Force?”

She gave a startled gasp. “How-”

“Jaesa can’t feel it either.” So it probably wasn’t because she’d hit her head. Jaesa had been uninjured as far as he could tell. But they had to talk about this later. “My lady, we need to go.”

She hesitated, taking deep breaths, regaining control of herself. When her head came up again, she was once again Lord Akuliina. He was almost astounded at how good her mask was, but he could see she wasn’t done having a panic attack inside. And he wanted to give her time to work through it, but right now he had no idea how much time they had.

“Right,” she said coldly. “Let’s leave.” And almost stumbled into him as she stood.

He caught her. “You may have sustained a concussion as we crashed.” Or before. “The kolto patch should help but if you have any difficulties I am happy to assist.”

“I don’t want assistance,” she snapped, pushing him away and staggering to the door. The floor being sloped probably didn’t help. She clung to the doorframe with her head down, breathing hard. “…But I might require it,” she admitted softly.

He was only thankful she still trusted him enough to admit that. He gestured that she should sit on the bed. “Wait here. I will make everything ready.”

It was another twenty minutes before they were ready to leave, and the sky was getting light, which was good and bad. Good, because now they could see where they were going, and any nocturnal predators would be retiring, and bad, because it made them easier to spot. Most of the gear was loaded onto Akuliina’s golden Amzab and the other speeder that had survived the crash, the black Praxon. The third was too badly damaged, its steering vanes bent almost to the point of breaking. Akuliina claimed she was feeling better, and she did seem like it, but he insisted that she ride the Amzab as well. It was overburdened, but that didn’t matter – they were only going to travel as fast as the rest could walk.

Akuliina agreed fully on destroying the Fury, on the hope that their attackers would think they died in the crash, though the fire and the smoke would be a beacon to anyone searching for survivors. They’d have to move quickly once he and Vette rigged the remnants of the engines to explode. The droid couldn’t know what was happening; it would be destroyed in the explosion as well.

His hand lingered on the back of the pilot’s chair before he left for the last time.

The planet was named Myrkr, according to the remnants of the databanks, a lightly inhabited forest world with a cautionary on criminal elements. All Quinn wanted to do was reach civilization; they could deal with criminal elements just fine once they got there, even with two of their strongest fighters lacking the Force. The planetary chart was somewhat lacking in detail, but if it was remotely accurate it was going to take them several weeks to reach the closest city. And that was if their enemies didn’t pick up their trail. If they could call for help without bringing down their pursuers, they could be off the planet more quickly, but he didn’t want to call from their crash site and give anyone a red flag to their survival and location.

It was rough going, the first few days, even after Akuliina’s concussion diminished and she could march alongside them. His own injuries built in intensity and then slowly began to fade, but turning his head still caused him discomfort. The forest was dense, tangled, untrod by humans before now. Whenever they heard the whine of patrolling fighters overhead, they flinched deeper under the trees. But all that was nothing compared to the nights, when beasts howled in the distance or padded, growling, around their camp. It wasn’t just that Quinn feared for their safety, but more that it was difficult to sleep – and shooting the things might just bring more.

The second night away from the ship, the nearby howling broke into snarls and snapping undergrowth. Quinn was not on watch – Vette and Pierce were – but he hadn’t slept since he lay down, and was already jumping up to fight when they yelled a warning. Akuliina and Jaesa burst out of their tent, Jaesa already brandishing her lightsaber, which gave an adequate if eerie yellow light to the clearing they were in. Briefly he wondered if it would bring an enemy flight patrol on them, then decided that staying alive _now_ was more important. Akuliina had not light either of her sabers, and had left one on her belt, the other loose in her hand. It had been a long time since she went with one saber. He hoped she was all right.

Eyes glittered in the darkness, reflecting Jaesa’s blades, and Pierce fired at them. One creature fell with a thump into the dark bushes, but the snarls increased in volume. “What are they!?” Vette exclaimed nervously.

“I don’t know,” Quinn admitted. He’d caught a glimpse of sharp fangs before Pierce had shot it and blinded them all with the emission of his rifle. “Best not to let them get close.”

“We may not have a – _choice!_ ” Vette squeaked as two or three more quadrupeds burst out of the bushes, charging at Jaesa and Akuliina. Pierce, Vette, and Quinn all fired near simultaneously, and the creatures fell face-first into the ground. Jaesa had lunged forward, but flinched back from the blaster shots – they had almost hit her, and no doubt without the Force she couldn’t anticipate them.

Akuliina had jumped, her lightsaber ignited, but when the quadrupeds fell, she lowered it again. Until Vette screamed and pointed. “Behind you!”

Akuliina spun, slashing downwards out of practiced reflex, and yet another creature gave a hideous cry and collapsed at her feet. Jaesa jumped forward, swinging, and almost hit her; Akuliina dodged away.

When the hum of lightsabers had quieted to background noise, Quinn looked around. “That seems to have driven off the beasts for the time being.”

“Oh my gosh, this is the worst planet I’ve been on,” Vette said. “Worse than Voss for creepy bloodthirsty monsters.”

“Stow it,” Pierce admonished her. “We’ve still got another two hours of watch.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Vette gave a shaky sigh and holstered her pistol. “Sorry about that, Lina! Try and get some sleep if you can.”

Akuliina nodded in the light of her saber, and then both women deactivated them and groped their way back into their tent. Quinn returned to his own tent. After she’d killed the creature, her hand had been shaking. Just slightly. If only he could hold her, or at least protect her better. Those beasts had gone straight for her.

Now to wait and see if their little light show had been spotted by the enemy ship in orbit.

By the fourth day, the aerial patrols seemed to have died down, and by the fifth day, they were gone altogether. They had been attacked several times more by beasts, but no one had been hurt so far, despite nerves and lack of sleep. But he couldn’t explain why the creatures all went straight for Akuliina and sometimes Jaesa, ignoring the rest of them. If she didn’t have the Force, she was no more extraordinary than the rest of them, was she not? How could they tell? Were they the ones blocking her ability to feel the Force? Surely that was a ridiculous notion.

On the fourth day, he also discovered that the field comm unit either didn’t have enough power to transmit off-planet, or was being blocked by elements in the foilage or atmosphere. There would be no short-cuts, no early rescue.

Now all they had to focus on was staying alive long enough to reach that city. To their good fortune, they came across a tiny settlement in the forest on the sixth day out, and they could rest properly. The people there, largely humans, rough and hardy, were suspicious of them, but gave them shelter in a boarding house anyway. It was fortunate they accepted Imperial credits.

He settled into the room he was sharing with Akuliina. They hadn’t talked at all on the trek from the Fury’s wreckage, marching in silence through the forest. He hoped she would speak to him now. He missed her.

And when they were alone in the room together, he had no idea how to start. “How are you?” It was a pathetic beginning, but it was better than nothing.

Her perpetual scowl eased a little. “I’m well. You?”

“I am well… I believe everything is under control. As much as it can be.”

There was a tightness to her gaze, just briefly. “At least on your end. Always so capable.” Her words could be taken as sarcastic, but there was no trace of that in her tone, only a heavy resignation.

He looked at her anxiously. “My lady?”

“It’s nothing,” she said, and he didn’t believe her for a second.

“Talk to me,” he begged her. “I… wish I could help.”

“Why?” she shot back, eyes suddenly blazing and yet full of pain and incomprehension. “Why would you do that? I- I am nothing!”

He blinked and stared, mouth falling open. “W-what do you mean?”

Her fists clenched. “Without the Force, I am _nothing! Less_ than nothing! I can’t- I can’t protect you! I can’t defeat my enemies! I’m not fit to _rule!_ ” With every statement her voice rose until the word ‘rule’ came out as a despairing shout. Her voice fell again, almost to a whisper. “Why would you help me when I am worthless?”

He’d always assumed that Sith took power because they could, according to their own creed. He wouldn’t have thought she would willingly abdicate if she lost it. No one else did. He also hadn’t been expecting her to react this way emotionally to the loss of the Force. Anger, he would have expected, not despair. Never despair. “You are not worthless-”

“I am,” she said, tragically. “The Force made me – makes me what I am. I haven’t felt it since I woke from the crash. I-It is probably gone… forever!” She shuddered on the word ‘forever’, squeezing her eyes shut, clenching her fists, baring her teeth, and practically vibrating with fury. He waited. After a few moments, she stopped, breathing a little harder.

“It can’t be mended?” he asked.

“I doubt it. Such things can rarely be reversed.”

“Surely you don’t have to give up your political power just because you’ve lost your Force power.”

She snarled at him. “Haven’t you been listening? I’m not fit to rule not because I’ve forgotten how, but because I don’t have the strength to hold on to what is mine. If I were in the military like you, that might matter less, but I am not, and one of the reasons the military’s discipline succeeds is because some Sith or another is capable of enforcing it. If other Sith found out how weak I am right now, they’d kill me as soon as they could. And they’d be right to do so. _I’d_ kill me, were I in their position.”

“Never,” he exclaimed fervently. “I won’t permit that.”

She gave a crumpled half-smile. “I am not planning on rolling over and dying.” No. She was a fighter born; she’d never give up while there was a heartbeat in her body. “But you don’t have the power to stand against Sith lords by yourself. It’s my duty to protect you as much as it’s your duty to protect me. The best thing I can do, if this can’t be fixed, is to disappear while you return to the Empire. It needs your skills still. Perhaps Murlesson will take you on. Perhaps even Lord Aristheron… I’m sure you would get along, despite his Light-leaning tendencies.”

“No.” She hated being told ‘no’, he knew, but now she was just being depressing. “Akuliina. I’m not returning without you.”

“Your loyalty to this worthless corpse is touching but misguided.”

“Akuliina!” He’d never raised his voice to her while dropping formality, and backpedaled hastily as she jumped. But to see her collapse so completely… by the Emperor, he disagreed with her feelings. And she’d been thinking these thoughts for the last _six days_. It might take some doing to convince her otherwise. “I apologize. But do you truly think I married you for your command of throwing things without touching them?” That was a gross oversimplification, and it sparked some proper anger in her eyes, but he wasn’t done and overrode her objections, just this once. “I love you for the strength of your _will_ , for your grace and dignity and passion.” He closed his eyes, his heart aching. “I love you for the way you tease me, the way you effortlessly drive me mad in so many ways. I love you for your eyes and your smile and the things you attempt even when you’re not expert in them. I love you for our shared love of the Empire we live in, and the way you fight to defend her. I love you for your anger, magnificent and terrible. I love you for the fire in your heart and the tenderness you show only to me.” And the amazing sex, but that didn’t really fit the tone of his declarations.

He opened his eyes and looked sadly at her. “None of which has much to do with the Force. If you had appeared to me years ago as you are without being Sith, I would have fallen for you anyway.”

Her mouth was hanging open as she stared at him like she’d never seen him before. He’d never said half of that out loud before, and she was properly shocked. “Malavai…”

“That’s why I’m not leaving you,” he said, kneeling before her on one knee, as he’d done long ago when he first asked permission to join her. “While I have breath in me, I will be loyal to you.” He meant it more than anything else he’d ever said to her, except maybe his wedding vows.

She fell forward into his arms, burying her face in his shoulder, and he held her tightly, mouthing kisses at the side of her head. “You are strong, my dearest. You are stronger than anyone else I know. You are strong.” She lifted her head enough that he could kiss her, and he seized upon it, covering her lips with his conviction.

She liked for him to touch her. Would she be comforted if he made love to her? He stood, backing her towards the bed, lowering her to sit there and felt her tense, just slightly, hardly noticeable – but he noticed. He stopped. That she would flinch from him, that she didn’t trust him after all they’d been through together, after they’d married, after all he’d said and done for her… just because she felt powerless… hurt him. He’d proven himself time and time again, and it counted for nothing. “Akuliina?”

“…I’m sorry.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes for a moment, hiding behind veils of heavy eyeshadow, and she’d _apologized_. For flinching. “I just remembered… you’re stronger than I am now.”

Ridiculous. And probably untrue, even if he was nearly twenty centimetres taller than her. He tried to lighten the mood a little. “You can’t possibly be afraid of me. Remember also, you are a trained warrior in hand-to-hand combat and I’m just a naval officer with good aim.”

She cracked a slight smile at that and relaxed a little in his arms. “Then by all means continue, Commodore.”

“You’re sure?”

“Don’t make me hurt you.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

She felt half-blind without the Force. The world without extrasensory touch was cold and grey. People didn’t feel like themselves if she couldn’t feel their minds, their feelings. She was completely and utterly alone and uncertain in a way she’d never been before. It was a dream… a living nightmare. She was a small piece of useless meat with a ridiculous painted face, who had to use her own two hands to manipulate anything, had to guess what people were thinking using only her eyes and ears. She’d hardly slept on the trek through the jungle, even though Quinn had never put her on watch, her stomach churning in terror of the beast attacks that she couldn’t predict. Terrified, too, that when she did fight, with her lightsabers, her limited situational awareness would fail her and she’d hurt herself or her allies. And she wasn’t picking up a blaster. Without training or practice, she’d just hurt herself or someone else even more surely than with her lightsabers.

She’d tried to feel it, tried so hard. She’d filled herself with her frustration and anger, letting it rise up in her belly and ignite her, and she felt nothing. She’d even, out of desperation, tried the absurd Jedi approach of calm meditation, though she was so bad at being calm she was certain that wouldn’t work in the first place. Perhaps that made it a self-fulfilling prophecy but she had to try. Would she rather imprison herself as a Jedi, or live without the Force forever? Tough call. One was like being dead, and the other was only half-alive.

It was impossible that Quinn should still admire her as he did. _Trust him_ , her conscience begged her. _Trust in him, who hasn’t let you down since he came out of kolto nearly two years ago_. But it was so hard to believe that voice, to make the conscious decision to trust, when her situation was changed so drastically. He’d said some beautiful words, but surely he was only biding his time. Or he didn’t yet actually realize how utterly useless she was. He would, soon. She was completely consumed by her paranoia, she knew, her own defence mechanisms overwhelming her habitual control and trapping her in a pit of her own construction, and there was no way to redeem herself that she could see. And she feared to let it go when it might be the only thing keeping her alive.

But in the meantime, Quinn’s embrace was so tender, his kisses so gentle and open, that she couldn’t resist staying with him a while longer. Even though without the Force, only feeling him through touch and sight and sound and taste and scent, he felt different. Not completely, but enough that she doubted it was him. But she knew it was him, and he was a comfort. And he always lowered her guard far too easily, even when she was fighting to keep it around her.

“I love you,” he murmured to her as he embraced her on his lap. His hands and lips were never still, touching her in all her most sensitive places; the small of her back, the curve of her waist, her collarbone and throat. “I love you, Akuliina, my love, my dearest-”

“D-don’t,” she stammered, every endearment stabbing farther into her vulnerable spots, laying her more bare than her current lack of clothes did. “Don’t say such… No… p-please…” She didn’t understand it. Usually endearments from her were what made her feel weak and defenceless, not ones from him. And tonight he was using more than usual.

“Akuliina…” His blue eyes were so earnest, so sad, and he kissed her so very gently. She couldn’t leave him.

Three weeks later, they arrived at their destination, the closest city with a spaceport on the planet. Possibly the only city with a spaceport on this entire continent. The forest gave way briefly to droid-run farmland before building up into something resembling a low-income urban environment. None of the buildings in the entire ‘city’ looked to be taller than three, maybe four stories.

Quinn surveyed it with field binoculars from the edge of the forest. “I can’t see any hostile elements from here. We can hardly assume that this place is safe, however, especially to Imperials. Vette, would you scout ahead to the spaceport?”

“Got it,” Vette said, and jogged off wearily.

They’d found a road leading to the city two weeks ago, and while prudence and paranoia had cautioned against using it, tramping through the forest was certain to take far longer, especially with the animal attacks, and they only had supplies for so long. However, the overburdened speeders had run out of power rapidly and they’d had to walk again after only a day of rapid travel. They were fortunate just to have enough power in the speeders to keep the repulsors going. They were all exhausted and footsore, and their spirits were low, even Vette’s. Once they arrived at the spaceport, they’d find passage to a civilized system using Akuliina’s hidden accounts, rest on the ship, and from there… Akuliina couldn’t go to Kuat in her current state. He still didn’t know what the plan was past the immediate future.

And the galaxy at large must surely have changed in her prolonged absence. He had to wonder if anyone knew what had happened to them, or if they were presumed dead. Perhaps other Sith had already begun fighting over her holdings. Surely search parties had been sent out, but even those she had informed of her destination had not known her exact itinerary, had not known of the refueling stop on Myrkr – though there weren’t that many places to refuel on a direct line between Dromund Kaas and Kuat. Had the searchers considered Myrkr too small and unlikely a place to find her? Had they searched for her in the wrong place on Myrkr? Had they themselves unwittingly hidden from rescue, thinking it to be an enemy?

An irrelevant thought occurred to him – Akuliina’s apartment was certainly rebuilt by now.

Vette kept her commlink on, and mumbled to herself frequently, noting things about the environment. “Hmm, lots of run-down abandoned buildings out here. Guess people don’t live on the edge of town anymore. Wonder why not? …Stray animals, they’re not running away though… Coupla boozers down that road, I think. Even if they aren’t, there’s only like three of them. Not seeing much danger so far, it’s pretty quiet around here. …You don’t even really need a map to this place, do you? The streets are all crooked, but I’m catching enough glimpses of the spaceport to know where to go. …These buildings are starting to look a bit less shabby, more people and traffic on the roads, looks a lot like small-towners you’d see anywhere in the galaxy, Tatooine, Dantooine, Agamar… Ooh, a market, and across the market is the spaceport. Surprising number of spacers here, actually! A lot of them look pretty rough, but no worse than Nar Shaddaa…” Quinn could hardly hear her quiet reports now over the hum of commercial conversation in the background.

He breathed an uncharacteristic sigh of relief. “Let us meet halfway.” He turned to Akuliina. “We’re almost off this planet, my lady.”

She made a brief noise without looking at him. She wasn’t grouchy the way Jaesa and Pierce were, but she seemed to be drifting through the days without really paying attention to them. She still applied her make-up every day in a vain attempt to pretend everything was normal, but she was getting sloppy with it. Would she, in fact, leave the Empire, wandering alone through the galaxy until she was killed or she killed herself? Could he do nothing to help?

“ _Risha!?_ ” Vette exclaimed suddenly, sounding more happy than she’d been since they crashed, and more shocked than he’d heard her in months. “Risha, is that really you?”

“I could ask the same of you, Vette!” said Risha, grinning at her, having snuck up on her in the market. “What are you doing on this little dirtball? You look exhausted, poor baby. I thought you were dead! You’ve grown so tall!”

“I always knew you’d be all right!” Vette exclaimed, all her tiredness forgotten. _Risha, alive, here!_ “Oh my goshhhh, it’s soooo good to see you! Hang on, I gotta tell my friends it’s definitely okay here.”

“With friends, huh?” Risha said, giving her a brief noogie, making her lekku twitch ticklishly. “You always did land on your feet. I’ve got friends too, here’s the spacer captain I boss around.”

The red-skinned Twi’lek woman behind her snorted very inelegantly, turning it into a belly laugh. “Yeah, yeah, and Risha fixes my engine so technically we work for each other. Ha! I’m Tu’sienni, captain of the Twosong, and you’re the famous Vette, huh? Nice to meet you. Looking for work? Risha says you’re real clever, good at sneaking and stuff.”

“Hey, Quinn, I met an old friend here, so it’s going to be fine,” Vette chirped into her commlink. “Tell Lina it’s Risha!” She turned to Tu’sienni. “Nice to meet you too! I’m afraid I’m not really looking for work, I’m still gonna hang out with my friend Lina, at _least_ until she gets better. She’s like another other other sister to me!”

“Ha, how many sisters do you have now?” Risha teased.

“A bunch,” Vette responded, laughing. “Like, four? But thanks for the offer! I appreciate it.” She dithered for a moment. She had no idea what Risha’s allegiances were, or the other Twi’lek. Would they hate Lina? Lina was hard to like under the best circumstances… but she wasn’t well right now, so she probably wouldn’t be rude to Vette’s friends, would she? Or just generally racist, or classist, or… maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Normal people didn’t like the Emperor’s Wrath at all. And she didn’t blame them.

“So what are you even doing here?” Risha asked again. “Myrkr isn’t exactly the crossroads of galactic travel. Do you live here?”

Vette laughed nervously. “No, no, I lived on Nar Shaddaa for a bunch after we got split up, but actually my friend’s ship crashed here a while back, because her ex-boyfriend was trying to kill her, and we’ve been trying to get off-planet again since. We’ve been walking for _weeks!_ ”

“That explains the tired look,” Tu’sienni said. “Exes can be a pain, no kidding. …Ooh, we’ve got a ship!”

“Tu’sienni…” Risha said in a warning voice.

“Yeah, I’ve got a ship! What’s wrong with offering bunks to your old friend and her friends, Rish?”

“For one thing, we don’t know how many of them there are,” Risha said tartly.

“There’s five of us, including me,” Vette said. “But I’d have to discuss it with Lina and Quinn. I don’t know where Lina wants to go, for one thing, and I don’t know if… well, it may or may not be complicated. But!” Vette held up a finger. “If she does decide to go, we can afford it.”

“Ooh, rich friends?” Tu’sienni asked with a smirk. “I haven’t even named my rates. I think we can squeeze five more people on board. Set up bunks in the main cabin, more fold-up chairs in the mess – it’ll work out!”

“So impulsive,” Risha muttered, rolling her eyes with a smile.

“That’s-” great, Vette began to say, when suddenly Quinn shouted something and her commlink began to spew sounds of blaster fire. “Aahhh! Are you all right!?”

“Ambush!” Quinn said shortly. “Could use you!”

“I’ll be right there!” Vette cried, running off, fumbling for her gun.

“We’ll help!” Oh gosh, Risha and Tu’sienni were coming too! They’d see Lina, and her lightsabers, and the Imperials in their uniforms… She prayed that they didn’t immediately run away from her and never talk to her again.

Even more, she prayed that Lina could drive off whoever was attacking her.

The first warning they had was a small, dangerous sound, like the hum of a wasp.

Then Akuliina jerked beside him, staring at the tranquilizer dart sticking out of her chest. She reached for it, but before she got even close, her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed in the street. “My lady!”

He was slow and stupid, throwing himself down beside her, plucking the dart from her body – it must have had a strong dose to put her down so quickly, and he was terrified it might be a lethal dose. Pierce growled and swore violently, raising his gun, and Quinn turned to see a dozen heavily armoured men charging them with heavy blaster rifles, firing as they came. Pierce and Jaesa dove for cover, but he wasn’t leaving Akuliina lying in the middle of the road. Vette screamed over the commlink and he responded, staggering to his feet to drag Akuliina to cover. Pierce was firing back, making more noise and light than damage to the enemy armour.

A blaster bolt caught him in the left shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to the ground. No, he couldn’t help Akuliina like this. _Get to cover!_ He crawled into the shadow of a building, his face and body covered in cold sweat, drawing and cocking his pistol with his good hand when he got there.

They’d reached Akuliina. No! They were taking her away! He gritted his teeth and fired, making a headshot on the nearest man. Two more turned and fired back at him and he ducked back behind his wall, feeling their shots knock small craters in the cheap plasticrete. He heard Jaesa shriek in anger and fear, heard her lightsaber hum viciously, then heard several more shots and no more lightsaber.

And now he could hear Vette, not through the commlink, but through the streets. “No! What are you doing with Lina!?” And more blaster fire, small-arms fire, from multiple guns, and only one of them was Vette’s… her old friend must have come with her.

Whoever they were, they had just saved his life, and Pierce’s, as the enemy was distracted from finishing them off. He pushed himself to his feet and glanced out of cover; the unknown enemy was retreating with their prize – his _wife_. He felt a hot shudder of anger and fear and shame run through his heart. But he couldn’t go running after them with an injured shoulder and no plan. He stepped out from behind the building, clutching his shoulder. There were three bodies on the ground, all of them enemies, none of them Jaesa.

Vette appeared, holding her pistol in both hands, on the verge of tears and with head-tentacles trembling. “Where are they taking her?”

“That’s right, Imp scum!” cried the human woman just behind her, pointing her pistol at him. He raised his uninjured hand slowly. Just what they needed, Republics sticking their noses in. And Akuliina’s abductors were getting away. “Don’t resist, I won’t hesitate to shoot.”

Pierce stomped up behind him, pointing his rifle at the human woman and the unfamiliar Twi’lek with her. “And who the hells do you think you are!?”

“Free citizens of the Republic, and we’re going to free Vette’s friend from your buddies over there. Right, Tu?”

“And you call me the impulsive one,” the red Twi’lek said, smirking in a very irritating way. She was aiming one blaster pistol at them, and spinning the other idly round her finger.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Vette exclaimed. “Okay, this is super awkward, but… this is Quinn, the guy I mentioned before. And that’s Pierce, and… where’s Jaesa?”

“Here,” rasped Jaesa, limping out of another alley. Good, he had feared the worst. “Banged my hip getting out of line-of-sight of those bastards. Who were those bastards? Who are you bastards?”

“Vette!?” exclaimed the human woman. “You’re… Imperial now!?”

Vette waved her arms in an attempt to get everyone to calm down. “N-no! But- Well- It’s complicated! I wanted to explain more delicately, but there wasn’t time…”

She was going to cry, and that would probably just make the situation worse. And technically she _was_ an Imperial citizen under Akuliina’s patronage. “I beg your pardon, but this is not a good place to discuss anything. You can be on your way. Vette will talk to you later.” They needed to go after Akuliina and get her back asap.

“No! We’re not going anywhere, and you’re not taking Vette anywhere,” the human said. “What have you done to her?”

“Risha! Please! Just put your gun down, just for now. I promise no one will attack,” Vette said.

“Yes,” Quinn said. Another fight was the last thing they needed. And a distracting waste of time. “Pierce, stand down. Better yet, follow those soldiers discretely and discover their destination.”

Pierce frowned, pleased to be given a useful job. “Yessir.”

There were too many things to consider, and not enough time. They needed a safe-ish location to re-organize. He and Pierce were going to need to change into their civilian clothing; they should have done it before but he hadn’t been thinking right. And everyone was going to need something to eat. He was going to need intel on the unknown enemy and to know if there was time for a rest before they went to rescue Akuliina… He himself wouldn’t be able to rest, but it would do Vette and Pierce much good before taking on a numerically and technologically superior force. “I’m going to find a location to regroup. Vette, join me when you are done. Jaesa-”

“Hold on just a minute, honey,” said the red Twi’lek. “I’m assuming the woman who was carried off was the Lina you were talking about, Vette?”

“Yeah…” Vette hung her head, and Quinn could tell she didn’t want to explain that ‘Lina’ was Lord Akuliina Volkova, the Emperor’s Wrath. It was going to have to happen.

“It’s quite all right,” Quinn said stiffly. He really didn’t want to be standing about longer than necessary. “We do not require your assistance. Go about your business.”

The Twi’lek shot him a sassy, skeptical look. “You really think you don’t need help? You all look like you’ve been run over by a Dune Sea crawler, and you’re going to need more than a band-aid for that shoulder, handsome. And we did save your lives.” She did have a point, but what did she want from them?

“Why are we getting involved?” the human demanded, though she’d lowered her pistol. “I just want to know if Vette is here of her own free will.”

“The short answer is yes,” Vette said, glancing at Quinn, probably sensing his impatience. “The why is complicated, though.”

“We don’t have time to discuss it,” Quinn said. “I’m going to look for a place to regroup. Jaesa, we’re going to need supplies and a map of the city. Could I trouble you?” Their enemies had what they wanted, they wouldn’t bother with her. He was going to have to tow the speeders, though, and he only had one good hand.

Jaesa grunted and stalked off. She was still limping, but he needed Vette to talk to the Republicans if they weren’t leaving.

The red Twi’lek stepped forward, holding out a peaceful hand. “Okay, look. I feel kind of bad we distracted Vette while she was supposed to be helping you guys. She said you needed passage off-planet, I’ll give you a fair rate. Interested?”

Quinn paused. They did need passage, and Vette’s connection might gain them a more trust-worthy flight than otherwise. “I am listening.”

The Twi’lek shrugged. “That’s my deal. I mean, if you want to tell me what’s going on, we might even come rescue Lina with you. I know you guys are Imperial, most of you, anyway, but just leaving you here in trouble doesn’t sit well with me.”

“Very well,” Quinn said, relenting; he didn’t have the energy to argue. Not while Akuliina was in such danger. If the woman wanted to work the ‘spacer with a heart of gold’ angle for all it was worth just to satisfy her curiosity, that wasn’t his business. Of course, once she discovered she was aiding one of the Empire’s strongest Sith… how long would it be before she turned on them?

Vette hotwired the lock on a small abandoned house on the edge of town, and the four of them entered. The human woman had towed the speeder bikes to the shed at the back of the house. There was hardly any furniture in the front room, but there was a large table left behind, and several crates that might do for chairs. Quinn dragged one to the table and sat, resisting the urge to slump into a puddle and bury his face in his hand. This planet was one disaster after another. Instead, he forced himself into good posture and began to undo the collar of his uniform jacket to expose his shoulder for treatment. Vette had brought in a first-aid kit from one of the speeders and busied herself getting out appropriate tools to help him.

The Twi’lek took the seat opposite him. “So. My name is Tu’sienni, and I’m a spacer captain here on business. Risha is my second. And you guys are…?”

He looked at Vette. Vette looked back at him helplessly. Let alone her conflicted feelings, he didn’t want to reveal that Akuliina was so weak right now, but there wasn’t any help for it. “Commodore Malavai Quinn of the Imperial Navy, serving under Lord Akuliina Volkova.”

Risha half-rose. “Akuliina Volkova? Vette, your ‘Lina’ is _the Emperor’s Wrath?_ The most feared Sith lord in recent years? _She’s_ your new adopted sister!?”

Vette squirmed, avoiding their eyes by smearing kolto paste on Quinn’s shoulder. There was a singed, bloody hole in his deltoid the size of a trugut coin and he was lucky that was all it was. He hissed at the healing salve and clamped his jaw shut. “Y-yes? It’s a long story…” She trailed off reluctantly.

“I think perhaps it’s a story that should be told,” Quinn said to her. If they were going to work together, they’d have to do it right.

Vette took a deep breath and began bandaging his shoulder. “Well, after we got split up, Risha… I knocked around the galaxy a bit, and then I ended up on Nar Shaddaa with a gang – eventually we got the idea to do something worthwhile with our lives, so we started liberating stolen Twi’lek relics and returning them to Ryloth and stuff.”

“Neat,” said the spacer captain. “Put me in touch with ’em, I’ll help out when I come across stuff. Gratis. I swear.” The two Twi’leks shared a look, and Vette nodded gratefully before continuing. Finished with his shoulder, she took her own seat at the table, wringing her hands together. He adjusted his uniform, impassive, and went to get a datapad so he could work while they talked.

“It’s actually sort of thanks to Taunt that I met Lina in the first place. We got a rumour of a really valuable treasure on Korriban, and I stupidly went after it – alone, too, despite all the rumours about the place. I got caught, stupidly, but they noticed I was good at breaking into things, so they gave me to Lina, who was a student at the time, so that I could break into a tomb for her. And it turned out she liked me, because I was helpful and my dumb jokes made her smile, so she kept me afterwards. After she got her own apartment and her own ship, I asked her about my slave collar and it turned out she kind of just forgot about it. She never zapped me like the other Sith did.”

“So she doesn’t believe in slaves?” Risha asked skeptically.

Vette squirmed some more. “She does, but she apparently didn’t think I was one. I don’t know why not… Like, she was and is the boss, but I was like some kind of unpaid non-slave minion… sidekick…? Anyway!” She rushed on past the can of racism-and-slavery worms that Republics so liked to obsess over. “She’s actually been super nice to me personally. She helped me find Tivva! And my mom, but my mom died before I could be with her again. But Lina helped. It’s not her fault she doesn’t understand normal people…”

“Sounds like Stockholm Syndrome,” Risha said, glaring at Quinn again, the nearest Imperial object to fix her ire on, no doubt. The alternative was the laughable idea that Vette stayed for his sake.

“It probably is,” Vette said. “But… I’m no political analyst, but I really think that the galaxy is a better place because she’s doing what she does.”

“Oh really,” Risha said. “Do tell.”

“Um… Well…” Now she was shooting nervous glances at Quinn. “Let’s see. I don’t know how many Sith you’ve met… but I’ve met a lot now. And Lina’s one of the most sane people in this entire government.”

“That’s terrifying,” Tu’sienni said. “ _Ixta_ , honey, surely you’ve heard what’s been going on at Trandosha. There’ve been massacres!”

“I know,” Vette said. “I’ve seen her first-hand. She does horrible things sometimes. And she’s proud of it. And she doesn’t have a great opinion of the Republic. But she doesn’t mindlessly hate it, either, and she’s doing her best to keep the Empire a relatively stable place, a safe place for the people living here…”

“Under their definition of ‘people’,” Risha snapped.

“I’m not gonna argue with you,” Vette said. “But without her it would be worse. Honest. She protects whatever she considers ‘hers’, like me and the rest of her crew. And she might love fighting and killing like a psycho, not just because the other Sith would laugh at her if she didn’t, but she’s not above using diplomacy. And if she promises something, she keeps her word no matter what. That’s why I haven’t left yet. If she was a crazy person, you _bet_ I’d be back with Taunt on Nar Shaddaa. Except if she was a crazy person I’d be dead already. So, anyway, that’s why I’m going to rescue her. You don’t have to come, but I want to do this.”

It was an interesting take on Akuliina, he thought. He didn’t dislike Vette anymore, but he still didn’t talk to her that much, and never about politics or philosophy. Now that she was forced to bring her thoughts into the open, to try to convince potential enemies to be potential allies, without insulting him or portraying Akuliina as someone she was not, he realized it was surprising that someone so pure and – for lack of a better term – Light would associate so closely with someone so Dark. Certainly, she had a materially well-off life in her current situation, but he doubted that truly mattered to someone as idealistic as she was. But as for her analysis, he found himself mostly agreeing with her. They could differ as to whether Akuliina’s specific actions and motives were justifiable, but she was a stablizing force for the Empire and therefore the galaxy, that was true and right.

Risha and Tu’sienni exchanged glances. “So what’s the plan, boss?”

“Dunno,” Tu’sienni said.

“You’re not still thinking of helping, are you? You got your curiosity satisfied, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but…” Tu’sienni drummed her fingers on the table. “You know, she has a point. Maybe _we’d_ be better off in the Republic if the Empire was more of a confused mess. But if there were more people in the upper ranks that the Republic could talk to, people who, you know, keep their word, maybe the whole galaxy could settle down for once? Co-exist, grow better societies together, compromise a little?”

“Ha, keep dreaming,” Risha said. Quinn had to agree. Not in his lifetime.

“Thanks, I will,” Tu’sienni said with a big, innocent grin.

“Besides, she’s not well right now,” Vette said. “I guess I’m not really supposed to tell you that in case you tell the Republic and they decide to hurt her, but if she never gets better you really won’t do anyone any harm by helping us rescue her.”

Tu’sienni smiled at her. “Then what the hell, it’s Vette’s friend, apparently she’s rich, we can give her a ride afterwards, it’s all good!”

Quinn let out a sigh that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I dared not hope for assistance, but you have my gratitude. You will certainly be rewarded. As soon as Pierce reports and Jaesa returns, I shall begin planning the operation.”

“Ooh, operation, sounds official,” Tu’sienni said. “I dunno who among my crew would be up for this fight. Corso, probably, we’re rescuing a lady, he likes that sort of thing. Gus, this is definitely not his scene.”

“What about the boy-toy?” Risha asked.

Tu’sienni giggled. “You know he’s useless where we don’t need some smooth words and charm, Rish. Anyway, Akaavi, she’s always down for a good fight, might even _like_ working with Imps for a change. And Bowdaar… I’ll ask him. He might take a dim view of the whole thing and all you people. I’ll let you know, all-righty, Commodore Hot-pants?”

Akuliina had inured him to such teasing. “…Understood. Vette, get some rest.”

“Okaydoke,” Vette said, sagging wearily in her seat, but smiling. “Just hold on, Lina…”


	4. Focus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was just getting into Eurobeat when I was writing this, so I used it as inspiration while I wrote. Therefore, here's some Quinn-related Eurobeat music: [Breakin' Out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_U0rV8CWXw) and [I Need Your Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoYx_SfaTA8)

Chapter 4: Focus

“This is utter madness,” Quinn said to himself, spreading out the flimsi map on the table. Jaesa hadn’t been able to find any downloadable copies for their datapads so flimsi would have to do. Vette was sleeping in the corner, and Jaesa was lurking in the other corner, resting, even if not asleep. Some sort of cheap near-instant soup was heating on the stove; they’d eat after he’d made a plan and they could begin preparing to move out.

Pierce had reported the enemy had taken Akuliina to a warehouse on the other side of town, behind the spaceport. It was not defended in obvious ways, but a chain-link fence limited entry, and there were more of those soldiers than the group that had abducted her, perhaps thirty. Moreover, he had overheard the name ‘Kadolan’, which confirmed Quinn’s guess. Kadolan had somehow discovered they were here, and shot them down, then sent soldiers to lie in wait for them to finish them off. Except, why would they capture Akuliina instead of killing her outright?

The thought of her alone and unconscious in the power of others was distressing in the extreme, and he had to force his hands to unclench, force himself to concentrate. Better captured than dead, always.

One hypothesis was that Kadolan had demanded that she be delivered to him. But waiting for the enemies to take her to the spaceport and then counter-ambush them was far too risky, and too late. If they were going to rescue her at all, it would have to be sooner, and not at an obvious time when the soldiers would be especially on their guard. And why would Kadolan want her alive in the first place? He had shown no hesitation in attempting to snuff out her life before, why the change in tactics now? Had something changed in the last month to make her more valuable alive? Did he intend to use her as a hostage to force her parents to cooperate with him, perhaps? Unlikely that they would, knowing them, and he could think of no other convincing arguments, either.

There was only so much planning he could do. He didn’t know the layout of the warehouse, though it was likely to be fairly standard – open-plan, with offices on the upper level. If he were in command of the soldiers, he would keep Akuliina on the upper level. There would probably also be increased layers of security, turrets, force fields, reinforced portals – the enemy had had a month to plan, after all. But if he guessed well, most of the security would be directed inwards, to prevent a fully-powered Akuliina from escaping. They could hardly guess that she would lose her ability to feel and use the Force, could they? But they would be less expecting an assault from outside. He could hope.

Captain Tu’sienni had offered four of her crew to assist: Risha, a farmboy with a shotgun, a Mandalorian, and herself. So he had eight people to work with; the best plan was probably to split into two groups and attack from two sides at once. Tu’sienni had offered to fly in and blast the roof off the warehouse, but Quinn had vetoed that – without exactly knowing Akuliina’s location, they risked injuring or killing her.

He resisted thumping a fist on the table in frustration, not wanting to wake Vette. He didn’t know enough, and he couldn’t make a proper plan without it. The best he was going to get was to attack the place from two entrances, ensure that everyone had good communication, _pray_ that no one jammed the commlinks, and wing it. He hated winging it. Modifying tactics in the face of a rapidly changing situation, that was fine. Making things up as he went with no base plan, not fine. Perhaps he should allow the Twi’lek to lead, except he couldn’t tell if her confidence was due to being excellent at improvising, or due to not thinking overly much in the first place.

One thing was certain, and he felt his face harden into an implacable mask as he articulated it to himself yet again: he would rescue Akuliina – he would rescue his wife or die trying.

They met at dusk at a crossroads not far from the warehouse that was their target. “I really don’t like this, Cap,” said the dreadlocked man with the spacers, undoubtedly the farmboy Tu’sienni had spoken of. “I know we’re going to rescue a lady’s friend-”

“Who is also a lady,” Tu’sienni said.

“But I’m not easy in my mind working with Imps.”

“You may stay behind if you wish,” Quinn said to him coldly.

The farmer glared at him. “As if I’d leave the captain with the likes of you.”

“All settled then?” Tu’sienni said cheerfully. “Good. It’ll be fine, Corso. What’s the plan, Commodore?”

“I was unable to come up with a sound stratagem,” Quinn said to Captain Tu’sienni. “However, I suggest that you and your crewmates ascend to the roof of the next warehouse over, transit to the roof of the target warehouse, and break in that way. My team will enter via the back door.”

Tu’sienni gave him a thumbs up. “Race ya to the damsel in distress?”

“Whatever it takes to get her back,” Quinn said stiffly.

The Twi’lek raised an eyebrow with a smug smile. “Good thing Akaavi brought the rocket launcher, then.” The Mandalorian Zabrak hefted her launcher and nodded stoically.

He checked his chrono. “Let’s go. Inform me when you are in position. We must enter at the same moment, or else one of us shall be too far outnumbered.” Every moment wasted now felt like a year.

The Twi’lek gave him the sketchiest, jauntiest two-finger ‘salute’ he’d ever received, and led her team away into the gloom. The street-lights were sparse, even in this district where one would expect many of them. The enemy probably had night-vision goggles. He would equip them with night-vision goggles if he were their captain.

“Now, Vette,” he whispered, and Vette threw out her distraction: a simple droid with a blinking light and a soft sound emitter, designed to attract attention without being overly threatening. They didn’t want the alarm to be sounded just yet, after all. The two of them had cobbled it together in an hour from parts obtained from the market.

They made their way by a round-about route to the back of the warehouse, where they waited until they heard the droid being noticed. Jaesa sliced an entryway in the chain-link fence with her lightsaber and they hurried through, clustering in the shadows by the rear entrance. He could feel his nerves settling into place. Being able to _act_ finally was so much better.

He heard a double-click from his commlink and double-tapped it in response, then nodded to Vette. A few moments later, the door quietly popped open and she pulled it towards her. It didn’t even slide on its own power, it had hinges. Primitive. Even the door of the house they’d used as a temporary base had slid open.

Pierce entered first, gun raised, and suddenly lowered it and cursed quietly. Quinn followed quickly. “What’s the matter, lieut- oh.” They were in a hallway, not an open area as he had expected. The entire interior of the warehouse must have been transformed, a first wrench in the plan – not that he’d had much of a plan for once they’d entered. There was a security camera at each end of the hall, and he shot both of them, though it was probably too much to ask that they hadn’t been spotted. Now they’d certainly been heard; he could hear a distant alarm going off. He wasn’t happy about the location, the enemy could pincer them easily. “Captain, we’ve entered and made some noise.”

“Yep, I can hear them heading our way too, getting the roof hatch open wasn’t quiet. Yo, Corso, brace yourself, kid.”

“Since they appear to have completely modified this building, I suggest we meet …somehow. I’ll reconnoitre and inform you if I find anything promising.”

“Righty-o. I saw security cameras, maybe there’s a central control centre for ’em.”

“I would agree with that hypothesis and am incorporating it into my search. Quinn out.” Heavy bootsteps were coming from the right side, but not the left. “Cover!” Together his team sprinted towards the left, trying to get around the corner before the shooting started.

The reason why there were no soldiers approaching from the left was because just around the corner was a heavy sealed door. The wall barely gave them any cover. “Pierce, rear-guard. Jaesa, cut this door open.”

“Am I just the can-opener on this trip?” Jaesa complained, slicing through the door slowly from top to bottom; the metal bubbled around the contained plasma of her blade. He would have asked Vette, but her hacking abilities, while substantial, worked best given time and with the objective of breaking in quietly. That wasn’t necessary here. “That’s two holes you’ve told me to make.”

“I opened a door too,” Vette said indignantly, peering under Pierce’s arm and firing the occasional shot at the heavily-armoured soldiers who had appeared once again. “Pierce, your gun is really freakin’ loud.”

“That’s ’cause it’s a _real_ gun, sweetheart,” Pierce said, chuckling. “Why fire one little laser at a time when you can fire all of them in rapid succession?”

“Tell that to Agent Elshinix,” Quinn said; he really oughtn’t to get involved in the usual petty bickering, but he had to respect snipers. He helped Jaesa slide the door open, though his shoulder complained through the painkillers; without the locking mechanism engaged, it was a simple matter of pushing it back into the walls, without touching the melted edges.“Door’s open – wait! Don’t move yet!” He’d glanced up and seen the gleam of automated laser batteries. Fortunately, they couldn’t rotate all the way to the door. A brief, sustained volley to the power housing of each turret destroyed both of them, surprisingly without an explosion.

Was this confirmation of his guess, that the defenses would be set up pointing inwards? Were they heading the right way to reach Akuliina?

They hadn’t killed any of their pursuers, but they were also unhurt for the time being. “Follow me!” He led them down the hall, alert for cross-passages, more turrets, security cameras.

The entire warehouse shook with a boom that vibrated the soles of his boots, and the lights flickered briefly before steadying. Was that the rocket launcher? Captain Tu’sienni was certainly getting the enemy’s attention.

His commlink buzzed with static for a brief moment before the captain’s voice came through. “-uess what, Commodore!”

“You used the rocket launcher,” he guessed.

“Yeah! But we used it opening the door of the security station! We’ve got access to everything – almost everything. Couple of systems got exploded along with the door.” He could hear a shotgun firing in the background. Tu’sienni giggled almost drunkenly. “This is so much fun! Hey, Risha, what’s this console for, d’you think?”

“Why don’t you go find Vette’s friend on the security monitors and lead our allies there?” Risha snapped back. “Better yet, I’ll trade places with you.”

“Fabulous idea! I like shooting things better anyway. Here, take the comm.”

“Hello, Commodore?” Risha asked.

“Quinn here,” he answered, leaning around another corner and quickly withdrawing as laser blasts nearly hit him. But he had seen an industrial-looking elevator, guarded by four soldiers.

“I’m just figuring out the layout here, it’s completely non-standard,” Risha said. “I’ll attempt to guide you to Lord Akuliina from here.”

“Much appreciat- grenade!” Quinn recoiled from the corner completely as a small metal object came rattling into their midst.

Jaesa made a strange high-pitched noise of anger and panic, jumping forward, and kicking the grenade back around the corner with as much vehemence as she could muster. It exploded, and two bodies were sent hurtling into the wall facing them. Pierce put a few shots in each of them, just in case, and peered around the corner. No one shot back at him, so he waved the others onward. “Clear!”

“Risha, do you know where this elevator goes?” Quinn asked as they headed for it.

“Um… I see Lord Akuliina – at least, I assume it’s her – but I’m still tracing out your route to her. As for the elevator, looks like the next floor down there’s a barracks, armoury, storage rooms. I’ve locked it down so that they can’t summon it, but they’ll probably take the stairs. Oh! You can skip that floor. Pick the lowest floor and head straight ahead. If I’m reading this right, you can punch right through a wall and end up in the laboratory with Lord Akuliina.”

“Much obliged.”

“I’m reprogramming or deactivating as many turrets as I can, but be on your guard,” Risha said. “The bottom level, there appears to be a dozen guards and six humanoid droids. If you wait a moment I can send the captain and Akaavi to help.”

He hesitated. He really didn’t want to wait. But that was too many enemies for them to deal with alone. “Very well. Tell them to be quick.” He got on the elevator, followed by Vette and Jaesa; Pierce paused to remove more grenades from the enemy soldier’s belt before joining them.

“Of course.”

“What’s Lord Akuliina’s status?”

“I’m not sure. She’s in some sort of… stasis… restraining… device? I’ve never seen anything like it before.” There was a pause, then Risha said, sounding more subdued: “I think it’s torturing her.”

Quinn felt another hot shudder. “Captain Tu’sienni had better get here quickly.”

“I’m here, I’m here, loverboy!” The woman careened around the corner, red tentacles trailing in her wake, and the Mandalorian behind her, huffing and puffing in her heavy armour. “Bottom floor, right?”

“Get ready to scatter, it’s likely they’ll use grenades again,” Quinn said, getting control of his feelings again. He needed to be ice-cold for the rest of the operation, no matter what he saw or heard, or else things were going to go poorly for everyone. “Lieutenant, take point.”

“Heh. With pleasure.”

The elevator chimed incongruously cheerfully, and the doors slid open onto a scene of pre-existing chaos. The turrets appeared to have gone haywire, although no doubt it was only Risha’s appropriation of their systems. The enemy soldiers were bunkered down too deeply to throw grenades at them, hiding from lasers, flame-throwers, and even fire-extinguishers spraying foam in their direction. Pierce charged from the elevator, roaring a war-cry and throwing a grenade; soldiers ducked back hastily from it. The others stormed up in his wake, especially Jaesa, who threw herself into the fray in a fairly suicidal fashion considering she could not deflect laser blasts as she normally did.

In a surprisingly short time the soldiers had retreated and the turrets retracted, what was left of them. “Spar, watch that corridor and I’ll watch this one,” Pierce growled to Akaavi, who grunted in response and took up a defensive position.

“Now if you blow through the flat wall in front of you, you can skip the labyrinth designed to slow her down,” Risha said. “Akaavi has one missile left, perhaps you could use that.”

“No need.” Quinn pointed to the wall. “If you could make ingress here, Jaesa.” She stepped forward and began to slash through the wall.

Even before the entry point had been completely established, he could hear that one horrible noise that he hated above all else: Akuliina’s screaming.

He ought to have let Pierce go first, but he was filled with blind emotion, shoving past the lieutenant and diving through the hole in the wall. He rolled into position behind the closest desk, though his shoulder lanced in agony, and came up firing. Return fire had missed his head by centimetres, but he had no time for panic now. The room had three desks, an operating table, a bizarre half-coffin object which held Akuliina, two men in white coats, a holoprojection, and four soldiers, one of whom was already dead thanks to his shots.

Vette was next, and then Tu’sienni and Jaesa. “Where’s Pierce?” Quinn demanded over the gunfire and the screaming. There was no cessation; she probably wasn’t even aware they were in the room.

“Guys in the elevator!” Vette answered. He glanced back and saw that it was so; he hadn’t even noticed in his focus to get into that room.

“The guys on the next floor up broke the elevator lock-down, so it looks like Pierce and Akaavi are holding them back,” Risha said. “Reinforcements are approaching this office as well, and I can’t lock it down since we exploded the door to get in. I’m going to have to take Corso and retreat pretty soon.”

“Understood,” Quinn said.

“I’ll deactivate all turrets and destroy the consoles. After that, we’ll be pulling out of the warehouse entirely. Good luck!”

“And you,” Quinn said, as the last guard fell to one of Vette’s shots. He rose, pointing his pistol at the men in white coats. “Whatever you’re doing to her, stop it!”

One of them dithered, shaking, but the other went to a console by the contraption and pushed a lever, and the awful, awful sound stopped. Akuliina’s head lolled forward, tears leaking from her closed eyes and drool from her mouth. Blood ran from her lips as if she had bitten through them, and her make-up was streaked across her face.

She was held in what looked almost like a coffin that had the head cut off, a personal prison that completely immobilized her – and did who knew what else. “Get her out of there.” The doctors, or whatever they were, dithered some more. “NOW!”

“So you’re the infamous Commodore Quinn,” said a new voice, and Quinn glared briefly at the holoprojector. Evryn Kadolan had been in the middle of gloating over his prize, it seemed – a man of medium height, slightly shorter than Quinn, with light, probably-blond hair, wearing military armour with the Kuati flag proudly emblazoned on it. “Of all the men in the galaxy, and she chose you?”

The coffin split down the middle, revealing a skeletal structure holding her in place and a number of other ominous tubes and needles; the restraints opened and she fell forward into his arms, completely limp, although he suspected she was still conscious. And had been conscious. The bastards. “Base insinuations aside, if you have anything useful to say, say it now or shut up.” If there was even a chance of gleaning useful information out of their enemy, he would take it.

She was moving, slowly, in a very disoriented fashion. “Evvvvv…” she mumbled, as if her face wouldn’t make sounds the way she wanted it to.

He hushed her, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “Everything is under control, my lady.” It wasn’t, but she didn’t need the stress right now.

Kadolan snorted derisively. “I don’t suppose I have much to say now that you’ve ruined my first plan. I knew she would be weak here, powerless, frightened; defiant but easy prey. I would have liked to show her how Kuat would flourish under my leadership before I killed her. But though your successes against my men are somewhat impressive, now you’ve come to free her, and I can’t have that. Computer, initiate Code 3412-”

Quinn struggled a hand free from holding Akuliina and shot the holoprojector, but he knew it was too late. Whatever this code did – and it was almost certainly not good – it was almost certainly underway. He rounded on the panicking doctors. “Tell me what this code does! Tell me everything about this operation and what you’ve done to her!”

“The command is a failsafe in case Lord Akuliina broke free,” said one of them. “In seconds the entire building will explode.”

An unspecified tiny amount of time? “Vette! Can you stop it!?” He scooped Akuliina safely into his arms, unheeding of his impaired shoulder and the confused, vaguely angry noises she was making.

Vette had already run to the closest console and was frantically typing. “I- I’m trying! The program’s on top and I think I got in, but the best I can do is delay it!”

There was no time. “How long?” Either Kadolan hadn’t bothered to codesafe his failsafe, or Vette was just that good. Perhaps he ought to thank her personally afterwards, if they survived.

“About two minutes, 120 seconds!”

“Well this is tense,” Captain Tu’sienni commented gaily. “I haven’t been on a timer this strict since I was making out with the man who stole my ship on another ship that was falling into a black hole-”

“Reminisce later!” Quinn barked. “Lieutenant, we’re leaving! Captain, bring the doctors!”

Pierce roared, but Jaesa was the one who charged, her lightsaber drawing sparks from the durasteel floor, screaming like a possessed manka cat. The enemy faltered at what must look to them either like insanity or sheer doom; either a woman running to her death, armed with a close combat weapon against ranged weapons at range, or a Sith lord about to destroy them all.

Before they could find out which was correct, Pierce and Akaavi Spar had followed her, scything blaster rifle fire indiscriminately across their enemies. They dashed together past the dying men and piled into the elevator with Tu’sienni leading the doctors.

Vette was on her commlink. “Risha! You’re out of the building, right? Because it’s going to blow up real soon!”

One of the doctors knelt before Quinn. “Thank you, oh thank you-”

Quinn resisted the urge to kick him. “Shut up.” They were going to have to run again, and he wasn’t saving them out of the kindness of his heart. The elevator dinged happily and the doors opened. “Go! To the back door!” It was only around a couple corners, if he recalled correctly, but the corridors hadn’t seemed so long on the way in. Pierce kicked open the door and they were out into the night.

They ran, not knowing how far was far enough, her head bouncing against his uninjured shoulder. The injured one was almost unbearable, but he held on stubbornly, forcing his legs to keep moving. He was quite certain that 75% of his blood had been replaced with adrenaline, and that was a conservative estimate. He heard the sharp roar of the explosion, felt the ground shake violently beneath him, felt a wave of intense heat wash over him-


	5. Loyalty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cameo for my Sith Inquisitor character; his story is Devil's Due which I'll be uploading soon. Also, the Twosong is the same name that I’ve used for my smuggler character’s ship since I was about 10 years old. :D

Chapter 5: Loyalty

And then it was over. He turned to look, saw billowing fire rising where the warehouse had been, and when it had passed it revealed a flame-edged pit filled with tangled struts. He fell to one knee, hugging Akuliina’s unconscious body close to him, panting and shaking slightly. She wasn’t dead, his master, his wife, _his_ –

His possessiveness surprised him, and he drew back a moment. Was this how she felt about him? What a pair they made. Still. _Mine. Mine mine mine. She’s safe now. With me_.

She looked so fragile, her silky white hair flowing over the dark sleeves of his tunic, so small in his arms, and he pressed her close again, regardless of the fact that the Twi’lek and the Zabrak could see him. Though, he noticed, they were still watching the burning building. Tu’sienni whooped in exhilaration, punching the air.

Akuliina was going to need a medical facility. She was still out cold, probably drugged in addition to the unspecified torture, and only a proper scan would reveal how much internal damage had been done. But did they trust the facilities of this city? He’d brought the doctors to learn what had been done to her, but could they trust them to tell the truth? Did they have a choice?

He shook himself mentally and gestured to Pierce, silently requesting that he take Akuliina. His shoulder was burning in agony and he couldn’t carry her any farther. As Pierce lifted her, he stood again, rounding on the doctors. “What was done to her?” he asked in a low, dangerous voice.

The helpful one flailed a little and began to babble. “Lecepanine tranquilizer – too strong a dose, she was supposed to be more resistant to chemical influence, we nearly had to resuscitate her, Lord Kadolan told us she would be- but after stabilization she was kept docile with, ahhh, Conergin and Ikricedonene. Perhaps still too strong a dose, but we couldn’t risk her breaking loose!”

“Then why torture her!?”

“L-Lord Kadolan wished to – to punish her, since he wasn’t p-planning to kill her just yet…”

“Electric shock,” said the other, wringing his hands. “None of the sedatives were also anaesthetics…”

“I know,” he snapped. He had Conergin in his field kit, it was relatively mild on its own and good as a sleep aid in small doses. He’d used it back before Akuliina succeeded in seducing him, though she herself always refused such things even when in his opinion she could have really used them. But to induce such a strong electric current that she screamed like _that_ while being drugged out of her skull… He felt his lip curl and he turned away abruptly. “Is there a medical facility here?” he asked Captain Tu’sienni, who was still getting her breath back. He was afraid that if he kept talking to the doctors he would find it impossible to refrain from shooting them.

The Twi’lek nodded, winding her tentacles around her neck to regain some semblance of poise. “Yeah, there is. It’s not a big place, but we keep it well stocked with donations from some of our… cargo, so it should be able to fix her right up.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Vette said. “It’s… so awful seeing her like this.”

Tu’sienni raised an eyebrow, looking at the unconscious woman in Pierce’s arms, but said nothing, shrugged, and turned to lead the way. A few moments later Risha and the farmboy materialized out of the darkness, smiling gleefully. Risha gave Vette a noogie, and both women giggled, the sort of giddy sound that came from cheating death.

He wondered how they saw Akuliina now, if they still saw her as the apex predator of a Sith from the news holos, the one who bathed in fire and blood, even when she was so broken. If they wondered how Vette of all people could prefer her that way. They hadn’t seen Akuliina’s charisma when she was at her most confident, her most arrogant – or, that charisma hadn’t worked on their Republic mindset. He had to wonder, too, what Akuliina would think when she awoke.

He turned on the doctors. “Get out of here before I shoot you.” They fled into the darkness.

She was still and silent as the doctors at the hospital began the detoxifying process – an antidote for the Ikricedonene for one – and except for the too-slow rise and fall of her chest she looked dead. Vette had cleaned off her ruined make-up and she looked more defenceless than ever, a young girl with a haggard face. One of the doctors noticed his discomfort in his arm and shoulder, and he accepted treatment on the condition that he didn’t have to leave Akuliina’s room.

When they had judged that she would have no long-term ill effects from the drugging, they called him over to tell him she would need immersion in kolto for twelve to twenty hours to ensure no lasting damage from the electricity. He agreed, but wouldn’t let them touch her again as he and Vette prepared her for immersion. He wasn’t a doctor, but he had substantial field medic training, he knew what he was doing. The kolto tank on the Fury had seen use more than once.

She seemed to regain some consciousness when he began to lower her into the tank, and tried to fight back, clawing at his arms. “It will be all right,” he soothed her. “I’m right here. It’s only kolto. I will be here when you are done.” His voice seemed to reassure her, but she still didn’t know where she was and she still fought him until finally she was ensconced in the tank and he let go. She banged feebly on the wall of the tank, and he was worried for a moment she might try to tear out the breathing apparatus and drown on the thick green liquid.

But her strength failed her, and she once again fell unconscious, floating peacefully, resting properly for the first time since they’d crashed on this horrible planet.

Vette had grabbed Akuliina’s personal effects at some point during the chaos of the rescue, for which he was grateful; she wouldn’t be happy without her lightsabers, one of which was a family heirloom, he was given to understand. They were now in a locker beside her tank, along with her sweat-soaked clothes, gloves, boots, her wedding ring, her circlet. Vette would bring a fresh change of clothes tomorrow.

He withdrew to the observation room, watching her in parade rest. He’d decided: if she never regained the Force, if none of the Sith knew of a way to restore it, he was going to resign his commission and follow her. If lightsabers were no longer a viable option for her, he would teach her to shoot. Even if she remained as she had been the past couple weeks for the rest of her days, a depressed husk of her former self, he couldn’t live without her. She could try to escape him, but he had tracked down cleverer targets than her, and he would beg her on his knees until she relented and allowed him to stay with her. For he had a feeling that she wanted him near, too, and her patriotic wish to see him return to the Empire would surely falter in the face of both their desires.

When the others came to talk to him, he sent them back to the house they’d claimed to get some rest. They wouldn’t be able to remain on the planet for very long, but he doubted very much that Kadolan would waste resources leaving a ship here of all places, and it would take time for him to send one. So between that and Akuliina’s kolto treatment, they had time for a bit of a rest.

Captain Tu’sienni lingered, though, stepping into the observation room with him. All else in the hospital was quiet; it was late at night now. “You should follow your crew’s example, Commodore. You fought harder than anyone today.”

“Later.” And he planned to sleep on one of the benches in the room, no matter who or what else had used them before him. He wasn’t going to leave Akuliina alone here.

“You’re really loyal, huh,” Tu’sienni said, seating herself on one of the benches in a slouch with legs crossed. “Perfect soldier and all that. I have to say, it’s pretty weird seeing the Empire- seeing Imperials like this. Normally you guys are either colossal jerkwads, or tyrannical lunatics – actually, wait, that’s the same thing – or corrupt and/or gullible sods. But you’re really not that different from Republic military types.”

“I think I’m insulted,” Quinn said mildly. “The Republic military is inefficient and often incompetent. We are nothing like that.” At least not now that Moff Broysc was gone.

“Sure, except with Sith playing power games messing you up. But you worry about each other, take care of each other; that’s not something most non-Imps get to see. You’re just guys and gals like everyone else.” _Only human_ , was a phrase that sprang to mind, but of course a non-human wouldn’t use such a term. “Or you can be. When you want.”

He frowned slightly, but it didn’t seem like an interrogation, only small talk. “Should you not be resting as well, Captain? What is it you want from me?”

The Twi’lek snorted and shrugged. “Is it so wrong to want to talk to an Imperial in the rare circumstance I’m not trying to sneak contraband past them, or get them into bed? Not that I’d mind doing the do with you, but I’m pretty sure that ship has launched and is in kolto right now.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” he answered stiffly. “I have no romantic interest at the moment, nor do I wish to.” Sometimes, if a woman was particularly stubborn about pursuing him, he’d tell her that he preferred men – but somehow he guessed Tu’sienni wouldn’t be fooled by that.

She rolled her eyes at him. “I may be dense at strats, but I’m not blind or stupid, Commodore. I saw the rings. And if you’re not hitched, your devotion and attentiveness to your young hot master is a bit on the creepy side.”

It was like ice water down his spine. When had she seen his ring? …When he’d removed his uniform jacket to allow Vette to treat his wound, he’d had to remove his gloves. He hadn’t even thought about it at the time. “If you knew our history, you would understand the strength of my dedication. She saved me from exile, shame, and death.”

“Colour me unconvinced. With rings that just happen to match?”

He grimaced and shut his eyes for a moment. There wasn’t much he could protest. Lying would be both dishonourable and futile.

“If you want to keep it a secret, I won’t blab – not without some hefty financial persuasion, anyway – but you’re going to have to be a bit more careful about that.”

He glanced at her cautiously. “Do you require… pre-emptive financial persuasion?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “It was a joke. I’m not an ass, honey. And, politically speaking, I’d guess you’re a stabilizing influence on her, and Vette says she’s a stabilizing influence on the Empire, so that makes you real important to the galaxy. I’m not jeopardizing that.”

He thought about that. “I suppose you have a point.” He had no choice but to trust her.

“Anyway, this is just meandering away from what I actually wanted to talk about, which is Vette.” She waited for some response, but he kept his eyes on Akuliina. “You don’t treat her as lesser. You don’t dismiss her or unjustly fault her or overburden her. And she’s not even in your military. She’s just a girl who travels with you as far as I can tell.”

“Vette has proven herself,” he said. “In a perfect galaxy, the Empire would truly be a meritocracy, with the most powerful ruling and the most capable aiding them.” In a perfect galaxy, Broysc would never have achieved any rank whatsoever.

“Regardless of race? You really think so?” Tu’sienni sounded skeptical.

“Only a fool dismisses ability simply because it does not come in the form he expects or hopes for. Otherwise I would have shot Lieutenant Pierce a long time ago.” She chuckled at that. “Certainly, by that metric the Empire is full of fools, though it is hard to admit… but so is the Republic, only they pretend otherwise.”

“We’ve also got more qualified non-humans in positions of leadership. You’ve got, like, one Zabrak on your Dark Council? And only because he killed the previous seat-warmer? Who was a male human like 80% of the rest of the Council?” Tu’sienni made a face. “I’ll take the Republic’s equal-opportunity corruption any day.”

It was like debating with a more mature Vette. How bothersome. “I must point out, if you are so keen to discuss racial inequality between humans and Sith and all the other races in the Empire, a disproportionate number of aliens do engage in criminal activity. If one of them proves themself trustworthy and competent, I will not dismiss them based on their species – but if one of them does not, it is hardly a surprise.”

Violet eyes narrowed. “Just when I thought you were an open-minded sort.”

“You yourself are a smuggler, you have all but stated.” Vette was a criminal, too, come to think of it. He just forgot since she served Akuliina so well.

“Yeah, well, I like playing tag with the law.” She grinned cheekily at his sour look. “And _I_ don’t think it’s because I’m an alien. I mean, I have a respectable job, I ship cargo, and it pays well enough. I’d just never fit into your society and I’m an ordinary gal. I hate folks telling me what to do, and I like one-upping stupid laws and uptight bureaucrats. But a Sith I ain’t, so I get my kicks from things other than fear and violence. Though violence seems to follow me around anyway…”

“You… are…” He deflated. Smugglers could be a problem, but they were hardly ‘everything wrong with the galaxy today’. “Have you considered more legal sources of excitement, such as deep-space exploration, or…” His mind blanked on more options.

“Aww, you tryin’ to keep me out of trouble in the new galactic order? That’s sweet of you, honey, but I’m happy where I’m at. Besides, exploration sounds boring, proper privateering is _too_ exciting, and frequently unfair to other folks just like me, and mercenary work needs too much ‘discipline’. And is way more dangerous.”

“I suppose I should be grateful that you’re not a terrorist.”

She sketched a mock bow. “How generous of you, what a high bar you set for me, a poor non-human.”

“I didn’t even say anything about… never mind. In any case, Vette is well-cared for, and she has earned my respect.”

“And if she decided she wanted to leave?”

“…That would be up to Lord Akuliina, and the circumstances.”

“Oh?”

“If Vette suddenly decided in the middle of a direct conflict that she wished to support the Republic, it would not go over well. If her actions directly caused harm to Lord Akuliina, she probably would not survive. Though the same goes for all of us who serve the Empire, of course, regardless of personal attachment. However, if she simply one day requested to return to Nar Shaddaa to spend her life with her friends there, Lord Akuliina would be… regretful, but I doubt she would bar her path.” She had almost set _him_ free, when her flirting had pushed him to the breaking point. It would have been the biggest mistake of his life, but she would have done it, to try to make him happy. Even though Vette’s long association with Akuliian would make her a target, were she to leave her, she wasn’t a very obvious one.

“I’ll accept that. Risha’ll sleep easier knowing that, at least.” She stood and stretched. “And on that note, I’d better get some sleep too, like you said. Don’t you forget either, mmkay? You look half-way to becoming a zombie.”

“Good night, captain.”

“Night night, Commodore.”

The hospital staff woke him from his bench next morning so that he could help remove Akuliina from the kolto; by the time she was out, standing on her own two feet and wrapped, shivering, in a towel, Vette had arrived with new clothes for her and helped her to dress. He could hear the girl chattering away through the cloth divider giving them privacy; Vette was telling her about Risha and the rescue, with Akuliina occasionally asking a brief, quiet question.

When she was ready, they were shown to a recovery room, where she began to pace, restless. Fatigue and pain still showed in her movements, as well as a great deal of emotional weariness. Vette left to get food, and he began to explain more thoroughly the events of the past day. It was hard to believe it was only a day. She paced, and he maintained parade rest. Even though he wanted to embrace her, he knew she wanted distance, independence.

“Finally, the captain has offered us passage off this planet. I have provisionally accepted, but it is of course up to you.”

“I see. And what would you recommend?”

“I recommend we take the offer. She is an emotional creature, and she is emotionally invested in our well-being to some extent. I do not believe she will betray us.”

“What does it matter?” she murmured. “Kadolan’s ploys are getting better. Even if I’d had the Force, I would still have been helpless.”

“You would have felt the danger,” he said. “And there is still a chance it can be healed, isn’t there? You cannot give up now, when we are so close to freedom.”

“Freedom…” She snorted gently. “Then I must speak with Murlesson as soon as may be. He may know of or be able to research a solution. I must summon the Golden Conqueror, since the Fury is destroyed… Discover what the Trandoshan – no, the galactic situation is, and if it is not resolved, find someone to take my responsibilities there if no one has done so…”

Her heart wasn’t in it, he could tell. “If you don’t wish to return…”

“I don’t know what I wish,” she said, flinging her hands in the air. “I can’t decide on a future until I know if the Force is lost to me irrevocably or not.”

“If it is, have no fear. I will follow you wherever you go.”

She turned to glare at him. “No you shall not. That would be a waste.”

“My service has much less meaning without you. I will not say none, but it would be torture to know that you are away from me, alone, and that I cannot help you. Perhaps I cannot help much, but if something happened that I could have prevented…” It sounded incredibly selfish, but he had no intention of backing down. He stepped towards her, standing over her – he wouldn’t dream of trying to intimidate her, he only meant to convince her of his sincerity. “I will beg you, plead with you, quarrel with you, make love to you until you permit me to remain with you.”

Her glare grew fiercer, and his hope grew stronger. “Commodore Malavai Quinn…! Sometimes I hate you. Very well! I shall return with you to the Empire, and meet with a swift demise, if it will get you back to work.”

“That won’t happen,” he said, restraining a triumphant smile. “Let me take care of everything.”

“I don’t want you to take care of everything,” she pouted, flopping to sit on the side of the bed with her arms crossed vehemently. She was being stubborn and irrational again. Which meant she was feeling better. “I’m Akuliina Volkova. I can take care of myself. Where can I meet with this spacer captain? I’ll need a holonet terminal and a scrambler as well.”

Someone knocked on the door, and Vette entered with two trays filled with terrible cafeteria breakfast food. “Did I miss anything?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Akuliina said, jumping up and seizing a sweetbun ravenously.

Things moved as rapidly as he could compel them to after that. She met with Captain Tu’sienni, and though still not quite back to her old confidence, selected Nar Shaddaa as a destination. That settled, she and he went to a holonet cafe to gather what news they could, and to make some calls.

The news was several days old, and was not amazing. The conflict on Kuat was dragging on, slowing fleet production and sapping the planet’s strength; Republic ships had been spotted taking a surreptitious look at the situation. The Trandoshan rebellion was not resolved, although Lord Aristheron had stepped in, taking command of the task force and bringing ships of his own to bolster Captain Cheyomar.

That news relieved her. He knew she didn’t _like_ Darth Aristheron, but she trusted him to act with the Empire’s best interests in mind. “If he weren’t already there, I’d probably have asked him to take over in any case,” she said, softly so the other patrons didn’t overhear her. “He might negotiate a surrender rather than seizing a surrender, but he will restore order eventually.”

“It is good that things are under control with Trandosha, as your forces on Dromund Kaas are not faring as well. Lord Falthiir is attempting to absorb your base, but Lord Kadolan has issued a claim as well. Your parents have said that without absolute proof of your death, no one has the authority to claim your possessions, but they are powerless in their current position, and most write them off as biased.”

“Which they are, even though they are correct,” she said. “Though my enemies would hurry to claim my holdings for themselves to deny them to me when I return. What of Broonmark?”

“He is not mentioned.”

“No, I suppose not. And Vowrawn and Murlesson would not be foolish enough to risk themselves openly defending my holdings when I might truly be dead for all they know. I think… I shall not contact Vowrawn yet. There is no need for him to know of my- I will call Murlesson.”

“Yes, my lady.” One of the valuable items hastily brought from the wreckage of the Fury was a field communications unit with a scrambler. While it had been useless at transmitting a message off-world, the scrambler would still be useful to block interception of the message sent now from this public terminal, at least temporarily.

As soon as she began attempting to make contact with Lord Murlesson’s freqency, the holonet cafe operator hurried up to them. “Sorry, ma’am, sir, we only allow text communication – voice and holo takes up too much bandwidth.”

“I’ll pay for it,” she said shortly, not looking at him.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, rules are rules…”

She turned to glare at him, her lightsabers clinking as she did so. “I said I’ll pay for it, one way… or another.”

Quinn leaned in to whisper. “It might actually be more secure to use text-based communication, my lady.” No one would be able to eavesdrop if she wasn’t speaking. Of course, sending and receiving text messages took longer, and lacked nuance. But if anyone could pick nuance out of a text message, it was Lord Murlesson.

She withdrew from intimidating the cafe operator, slowly, not breaking eye contact even as she switched off the attempted call. The portly man breathed a sigh of relief and left them.

“He was right,” she agreed to Quinn in a low voice. “The bandwidth in this place is ludicrously bad. I can’t wait to return to a real planet.”

Lord Murlesson sounded vaguely surprised but not vastly shocked at her survival, and though he was a history student who never stopped reading, his informal typing was atrocious as always. Quinn knew he could spell correctly, he simply chose not to under most circumstances. After a short negotiation, he agreed to meet with them in confidentiality on Nar Shaddaa in six days, and to bring Broonmark. They themselves would arrive in four days, but it was longer to Dromund Kaas.

“Will you not also contact Captain Cheyomar, my lady?”

She frowned. “I do not see a reason to until I know for certain I am returning to duty. And I’m not calling the Golden Conqueror away from action just to pick up Pierce.”

“If the cure for your affliction is easily had, you will wish to return to action as soon as possible, will you not?”

She hesitated. “A good point. But if the Conqueror’s movement signals my return to the galaxy for those who are watching…”

“I will return with him until the situation on Trandosha is resolved and I am free to return to you unscrutinized.”

“I suppose it will be good enough. Here, you message him then.” So he messaged Captain Cheyomar as well, telling him to arrive at Nar Shaddaa in a minimum of seven days. The captain’s response was genial, and he inquired as to her lordship’s status. Her lordship almost smiled and said that it was classified.

When they boarded Captain Tu’sienni’s ship, the Twosong, they were met in the cluttered common area by the captain and her crew. “Welcome aboard the Twosong! She’s not the biggest or most comfortable, but she’s fast and slippery. From bad guys, I mean. Not that you’ll slip. Unless you spill booze in the mess. Make yourselves comfortable- What, Lenn?”

The handsome, naive-looking man beside her pointed with considerable alarm. “You made a deal with Imperials?” Quinn frowned. The accent was strongly Alderaanian, upper-class. Odd to hear on a rough spacer’s ship.

Corso Riggs scuffed a dirty boot on the deck grating sullenly. “I knew the others wouldn’t like it, I don’t know why you made me promise not to say anything…”

“More than Imperials! Even without the Force, I can tell. Those girls are-” the fish-head in the back began to say, then stopped abruptly and ran away down the corridor. Risha gave Tu’sienni an ‘ _I told you so_ ‘ look. The Wookiee was quiet and impassive and Quinn didn’t like it. Akaavi simply stared unblinking at them all.

Pierce returned from stowing the speeder bikes in the cargo bay, dusting his hands together. “Are you lot looking for a fight? When we’ve already paid?”

Tu’sienni sighed. “Okay, yes, I did make a deal with Imps, but hey, they’re paying, and they’re actually not terrible people? Just relax. Risha, can you go tell Tuna-Fish to chill out, please?”

“My sweet, this is a very bad idea,” the Alderaanian said to Tu’sienni. “What about your other connections?”

“Honey,” Tu’sienni began, but Akuliina, her patience worn to the breaking point, stepped forward aggressively.

“Lenn, wasn’t it?” she said quietly, bitingly. “Lenn of House Terann of Alderaan, if I’m not mistaken? Staunch supporter of the Republic, both in your house and in your personal beliefs, clearly. But now you’re slumming it, abandoning your rank, your house, your duty to your planet and your side in the war, unless you _really_ think you’re making more of a difference in the anonymity of space than with the responsibilities the rank of your birth gave you. If you want to oppose me, either get your cowardly guts together and fight me, or go home and rally your Republic against my Empire harder! But don’t whine sanctimoniously about this being a bad idea when the deal has already been made.” She paused for breath, the Alderaanian falling back a step in shock, the captain with a raised eyebrow. It wasn’t actually going to come to a fight, was it? After everything? “You’re not the only one put out by this arrangement. Believe me, I’m not thrilled at this entire situation from its point of origin on Victory Day. So sit down, shut up, and listen to your captain.”

Tu’sienni blinked. “Whew. Okay. Don’t antagonize the nice lady, honey. It’s just business. Honest. I’m not gonna let you all die.”

“Right,” said the farmboy, seemingly torn. “I mean… Yeah.”

“What’s his problem?” Jaesa asked.

“Riggs has issues,” Akaavi said. “Don’t ask, you won’t like the answer.”

“Hey, I don’t have issues!”

“You have so many issues, kid,” Tu’sienni said. “Anyway, as I was trying to say before, make yourselves at home. It’s a bit snug, but we’ve got enough cots set up, we’ve got lots of food, and we’ve got lots of caf and alcohol. Maybe not up to your standards, but better’n nothing. If you need anything, just ask me or Risha.”

“Or me,” Akaavi Spar said.

“I’m gonna get us lifted off now,” Tu’sienni said. “Don’t want to get pinned down by last-minute bureaucracy… or your ex-boyfriend sending ships to blow us out of the sky. Not that they could. Anyway.” She disappeared down the corridor that Quinn assumed led to the cockpit. Politely, Risha stepped forward and turned the holoprojector on, displaying their location against the planet.

The intercomm hissed with static briefly, then Tu’sienni’s voice came across. “All hands strap in for lift-off and stuff.” The Zabrak shook her head, but said nothing as they all moved to seats.

Lift-off was surprisingly smooth; the Twosong’s engines must have been well-tuned. Almost as well-tuned as the Fury’s had been. Quinn felt a momentary pang that their own beautiful ship was utterly destroyed… but he forced it down. It was only a ship. They’d get another, better.

They had just cleared the thermosphere when he felt Akuliina grow very very still, beside him. He glanced at her, trying not to draw attention to her, suddenly very aware of the warmth of her arm and her leg. Had she actually grown warmer?

Apparently she didn’t care about surreptitious, because suddenly she flung out a hand and a disposable cup sitting on a crate began to float in the air. She stared at it, and he stared at it, and they all stared at it. Then suddenly she clenched her fist, the cup crumpled into a little ball, and she tore off the safety harness and stormed away down the corridor, an aura of frustration following her like a black cloud.

“My lady!” he stammered, throwing off his own harness and following her. He hardly heard Jaesa making her own exclamations or Vette trying to calm her down, hardly noticed the holoprojector showing a fairly large ship dropping out of hyperspace near their location.

He found her in the engine room, lurking high up in the back, hardly noticeable except for her glaring golden eyes. “My lady?”

“It’s back,” she whispered. A hydrospanner from the neatly-sorted tool rack behind him whipped from its place and into her hand, where she examined it.

“Yes.” Why did that seem to upset her? He would have thought she would be overjoyed. They wouldn’t have to speak to Lord Murlesson. She could return to active duty immediately, they all could. Whether that meant Kuat or Trandosha hardly mattered yet.

She must have heard his thoughts. “There’s… no meaning here. I accomplished nothing to achieve this. No effort, it was simply… there again. I… I don’t understand.”

He didn’t understand either, but that was all right. He didn’t care. She was herself again. Even if she seemed so disturbed that he couldn’t even smile at her reassuringly. There was a wall between them again, as thick and firm as when she’d lost her connection to the Force the first time.

He needed to exercise patience. She’d let him in eventually. She always did.

“Hyperspace coming up,” Captain Tu’sienni said over the intercomm. “We’ll outrun that guy easily, he’s pretty late to the party.”

“Evryn sent someone to check, did he?” Akuliina muttered. “I can’t deal with him now.”

He needed to strap in, but he didn’t want to leave her. He took hold of the safety railing and braced himself.

She glanced at him. “Don’t worry. I can protect you again.” Suddenly he was immobile, unable to move, unable even to breathe.

She held him steady until the g-forces of lightspeed subsided.

She spent the rest of the trip to Nar Shaddaa away from the others, lurking in shadows. It was so uncharacteristic of her, and he had no idea what was going through her head. Her power was back and she was brooding more than she ever had before. Was it the lack of control over her situation? She was only a passenger here, not the lord and master, and it would take quite the emergency to force her to even bend her word. She had nothing to do _besides_ brood. All he could do was remain near her, in the engine room, in the cargo bay, and she didn’t force him away. Although, she hardly acknowledged his presence, either.

He missed her.

The other crew all gave her a wide birth, with the exception of the Zabrak Mandalorian, Akaavi Spar, who didn’t seem to care who they were. The air in the ship was strained, as if the Republicans were just waiting for Akuliina to snap. Hardly anyone spoke, to them or to each other, and the Wookiee and the Mon Calamari glared at them constantly. For their part, Pierce spent a lot of time polishing his rifle, and Jaesa paced the common area constantly. It was perhaps the most awkward four days he’d ever experienced.

The only one who was really happy was Vette, who spent most of her time with Risha, gossiping and giggling. One time Akuliina, hearing her down the corridor, said softly: “Maybe she should stay here.”

“My lady?”

But she didn’t elaborate on that.

On the last day, she sent Quinn away for a while and asked to speak to Vette. Vette entered the cargo bay cautiously, picking her away around the speeder bikes and various miscellaneous packages. “Lina? Am I in trouble?”

Akuliina was hunched on a crate near the back, her back against the bulkhead and her knees drawn up in front of her. “No, why would you think that?”

“You wanted to talk, that means someone’s in trouble.”

“In the chain of command, perhaps, sometimes. Not you.”

“Also you look kinda scary right now, and you’ve been acting weird.”

Akuliina looked away. “I know. But it does not reflect on you. Nor will I take it out on you. You know I only lash out at proven culprits.”

Vette plonked herself down on a crate near her with a big smile. “Whew! Okay, what did you want to talk about, then?”

Akuliina was silent for a while. “Vette, have you considered staying with your friend?”

“With Risha? Sure! But I decided not to.”

She’d already decided? “Why so?”

“Well…” Vette began examining her blue fingers as if they’d give her the words. “I was super tempted, of course. It’s been so long, and we still get along really well. And if I stay with you, then I can’t really keep in touch with her easily – Captain Tu’sienni is really pro-Republic, and me and Risha talking would make her look bad to the Republic and you look bad to the Empire. But… if I go with Risha, then it looks like I’m betraying you and I know how much Sith place in appearances.”

“Not untrue.”

Vette hung her head. “Also I know that if our paths crossed again, if Risha and I were doing something anti-Empire when you met us, you’d have to kill me and I don’t think either of us wants that, but Sith are so dramatic.”

“It is a possibility. But then why so loyal to me? I know your heart, Vette – while you love who I am, you don’t love _what_ I am.” Vette seemed so much more relaxed than usual, even around her.

“Yeah. I really don’t. You’re more sensible than other Sith, and I love when you’re taking charge and bossing around people who need to be bossed, but you still do terrible, cruel things to people who don’t really deserve-”

“Vette.” She wasn’t changing just because Vette didn’t like it, and Vette knew it, so why was she even mentioning it?

“Um! I mean- Well, anyway, I don’t feel like my part in your journey is over yet, you know? I feel like I shouldn’t just bail when you’re in the middle of fighting Lord Kadolan. Maybe when you defeat him? Have some closure?”

Akuliina raised an eyebrow. “So you’d rather remain with me, a so-called ‘terrible person’, with other people you don’t particularly like, heading into mortal danger, for a cause you don’t believe in, than remain with folk who clearly welcome you with open arms, who engage in slightly less dangerous pastimes?”

Vette pouted. “I don’t not like Quinn, he’s a giant dork once you get to know him. Do you want to get rid of me, Lina? Am I being a burden?”

“No, not at all. I simply want to be sure you realize your insanity.”

“Well, then…” Vette scooted closer to Akuliina and touched her glove gently. “Yeah, I would love to stay with Risha, or Taunt. If it was about danger, even Tivva would be less dangerous than staying with you. Oh, that’s right! If I leave you, it’ll be harder for me to talk to Tivva, with her Moff and all, that too. Anyway, well, maybe one part of it is… yeah, people call you a terrible person, but… you’re still a person. And I know you have Quinn and all, but you don’t really have a lot of friends, do you? It must be lonely sometimes… I know you trust me as much as you can, and you were my only friend in a really bad time for me… so I want to stay with you a little longer.” Vette smiled sheepishly. “Listen to me ramble! Maybe I do really have Stockholm Syndrome.”

“Probably, since I don’t seem to recall complaining about my tragic dearth of friends,” Akuliina said, and Vette giggled.

“Okay, but you like me around, right?”

“I do.” She was awfully fond of the girl and her antics. It was more difficult now to observe them, when she was the Emperor’s Wrath and commanding a fleet and holding sway at the Sith Sanctum, but Vette’s absence would leech a little bit of interest from her life. “If you would like to stay until Kadolan is dead, I would be happy to keep you on.” Perhaps sending her on vacation more frequently would be a good idea. There _were_ places in the Empire where people could be considered ‘normal’, with fewer Sith and military affairs to distress the girl. Akuliina had no interest in them herself, but it was her responsibility to look after her underlings to some extent, and Vette was a special case.

Vette smiled broadly. “That’s good! And I _will_ be able to keep in touch with Risha without people accusing everyone of treason – we’ll use Taunt as a go-between! Which means I have another excuse to talk to Taunt, too!”

“You have too many sisters,” Akuliina commented, and Vette laughed.

She stalked into the Slippery Slope, a terrible name for an alcoholic establishment, and headed for the back rooms. Murlesson’s pilot was hanging around the door of one, and nodded to her with a slight leer as she entered. She ignored him entirely.

The teenage Zabrak was sprawled on a couch in an entirely uncomfortable-looking position, reading his omnipresent datapad. She could sense his quietly seething black aura, faint and veiled as usual, but it reassured her as to the continuance of her power. His baleful red-yellow eyes flicked up as she entered. “You finally got here.”

“I’ve been here for two days,” she retorted; those days had not done much to restore her mood. “Broonmark?”

He waved over at the corner, and the Talz shambled forward, burbling grammatically primitive declarations of violent loyalty and relief at her survival. “Yes, yes, Sith are talking, hush.”

“What did you need me for?” Murlesson drawled, looking back at his datapad. “The Viper isn’t a taxi service, certainly not for mere minions.”

She put her hands on her hips, curbing her irritation. Sometimes it amazed her that this boy was on the Dark Council. It was lucky for him that he was clever. “What do you know of a planet called Myrkr?”

That got his attention, and he actually sat up. “Myrkr? Frak, no wonder you were out of contact. Even in all my holocrons, Myrkr is only a whisper.”

She frowned. “It’s not on any major trade routes, but surely it’s not that obscure to the galaxy in general.”

“The galaxy in general doesn’t use the Force,” Murlesson countered. “Who cares what pirates and smugglers know about it? Besides law enforcement. But they don’t know anything relevant to _this_. The important thing is that the planet blocks the Force. And no one knows why.”

“That matches perfectly with my experience there,” she murmured.

He nodded. “No Force-user, Jedi or Sith, goes there voluntarily, or at least hasn’t written about it if they have. If you care to share any details…”

“I felt the Force when we docked with the refueling station. We were shot down shortly afterwards, and I was knocked unconscious during the descent. When I recovered, we were on the planet’s surface and I could feel nothing. Everything was… it’s all different without the Force.” She gave him a sardonic look. “It was terrifying. I don’t recommend it. Except to my enemies.”

“We’re Sith,” he drawled, and she snorted, taking his point.

“Perhaps I should invite Evryn down there. If he performs as well in combat as he ever did in bed, I’ll wipe the floor with him even with my handicap. At any rate, when we left the planet nearly a week ago, we had only just left the atmosphere when it came back to me, all at once. Quinn may have noted a more precise altitude.”

He poked his datapad. “Anything else?”

“I… There is one thing. There are wild beasts in the forests there, carnivores, and they almost exclusively attacked me, and sometimes Jaesa.”

He frowned. “That is odd. How would they know, if the Force is blocked there?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps they are the ones blocking it?”

“They’d have ridiculous amounts of power if that were the case. That seems unlikely.” He dug in his pocket for his commlink. “’Shara. …Yeah, it’s me. Can you start a search on Myrkr? …The planet. …Yeah, anything you can find. …Okay. Bye.” He didn’t even glance at her as he hung up the call and poked his datapad some more. “I’m assuming when you called me you thought you were going to have to go get ‘cured’ to use the Force again, and so I’m further assuming you don’t actually need me as urgently you did when you called.”

“No. That is all correct.”

“It wasn’t a total waste of time, but I have to get back to work now. Oh, and your apartment’s fine, you’re welcome.”

She smirked. “I thought you might pull some strings in secret. I’ll count that a small favour.”

“Only a small one?”

She waved as she turned to leave, her white-furred bodyguard looming at her heels. “Ta. Have fun in your library.”

“Have fun killing your ex.”

“I will.”

She arrived alone in her own private quarters on the Golden Conquerer, her flagship. She’d called her parents, called Vowrawn, called Aristheron, not to highly publicize her return yet, but her closest allies ought to know. Especially her parents, who had scolded her for being caught out in the first place.

Quinn was still on the bridge, seeing to the course and the crew. Broonmark had accompanied her to her door, taking up his place in his little guard-station. He was ideal for the job, and never tried to invade her privacy. Sometimes he growled at Quinn… but Broonmark knew Akuliina would be angry if he stopped him.

At any rate, she had some pressing concerns of her own, and summoned her personal med droid from its closet, requesting a full medical exam.

She was so tired still. Her physical cuts and bruises had healed, even the electrical burns had faded thanks to the kolto. The Force flowed through her as strongly as ever, and she’d mostly come to terms with its strange, unsatisfying return. All that Murlesson’s sparse knowledge of it had told her was that planet was cursed.

She’d felt like she was going insane on the Twosong, trapped in her head and in unfamiliar surroundings, and though Murlesson had been a breath of familiarity, Nar Shaddaa hadn’t been much better. Without a ship of her own, she wasn’t truly free. The moment she arrived on the Golden Conqueror, she immediately felt more like herself, back in her own domain where she was the lord and ruler. She’d had a full hour-long sparring session with Jaesa, had tested her rage against Evryn on some hapless sparring dummies.

Evryn. He was at least part of her problem. She hated him, hated his handsome face and dry charm that had seduced her when she was sixteen, violently loathed him for his betrayal. He’d used her; every look, every word, every caress had been an act to get close to another woman. And then he’d left her so suddenly she’d thought him assassinated at first. But that, too, had all been an act. She’d behaved so poorly once she figured out the truth that her parents had to discipline her, temporarily exiling her to her own holding to teach her the value of work as a balm to a wounded heart.

And yet… there was some part of her, deep down, that didn’t hate him, that had thrilled when she heard his voice again. She’d almost loved him – not like she loved Quinn, but… he would have been a good match for her, if he hadn’t been a duplicitous vermin. Strong, confident, clever, charming, the first to show her that physical love didn’t have to be painful… If only he’d had honour! And the fact that this little pocket of tenderness still existed, that he’d played her so well she still felt it, only made her hate him all the more.

But even her hatred of Evryn was only a distraction from her present concern. She should not feel this way, she was technically well-rested. Her shoulders and feet should not ache as if she’d overstressed them, not after a mere hour or so of exercise after several days of rest. She was well-trained. She knew how to avoid muscle strain and repetitive motion injury. The Force was being irritatingly unforthcoming on her condition. So what was it?

“Greetings, my lord. I’m so glad you have need of me for once. That closet is so dreadfully boring…”

“Shut up and get on with it, you pile of bolts.”

“My lord is unkind as usual. Very well… I will fulfill your command, and then be banished back into that cramped, dark space…”

She sat impatiently through the droid’s scrutiny and sample gathering, through the needles and lights and scans, and skimmed through the results on a datapad.

Impossible. That answer was wholly, entirely impossible.

And she reached inside herself to check, and froze, as if suddenly turned to stone. Impossible.

Not impossible, now that she thought of it, and allowed herself a short, mirthless, incredulous laugh.

She tapped the comm and contacted the bridge. “Commodore. I’d like a word with you in my quarters immediately.”

“Yes, my lady.”

As the door slid open, his stoic mask melted into an expression of concern. “What’s wrong, my- Akuliina?”

She stared at him for a long moment, unable to move or speak with the sheer insanity of the situation, then shoved the datapad at him abruptly. He took it and read it, frowning, until he came to the section she’d come to, and his face slackened in surprise; she felt the uncurbed shock wash through him. He looked up at her, mouth falling open. “This…”

“I’m pregnant,” she said in a small voice, still staring at him intently, as if he could help her make sense of this. That would explain why she was late, after he’d given her his monthly gift of Alderaanian peppernotes – she’d almost forgotten that she hadn’t been bleeding and racked with pain for three days, that she’d been vaguely concerned about it at the time before she’d forgotten it in favour of more pressing issues.

“I don’t understand,” he said, blinking. “How? When?”

“It must have been on that planet,” she said. “When I didn’t have the Force… I forgot.” He was still staring back at her, and she went on rather hurriedly. “It wouldn’t normally be an issue, except-”

“Except?”

“Th-there’s a heartbeat,” she whispered, and his eyes grew wider. “Tiny… fragile… but there. I couldn’t just… So… I… thought I should ask your opinion. On what to do with it.”

She knew what his answer would be even before a strange look of hopeful joy blossomed over his face and in his spirit. That was not a look she was accustomed to seeing on him. “If you’re willing, Akuliina… I… we should keep it.” He’d long had a secret wish to be a father, she knew, and she’d partly crushed his hopes before. To see him so elated now, she wasn’t going to take that away from him. Sith weren’t – oughtn’t to be cruel without purpose.

She nodded once. “Very well. You realize it will make this battle more difficult.”

“I know.” His expression didn’t change.

“You realize I’ll have to take time off afterwards, until the child is birthed and weaned. It will be suspicious.”

“I know.” She knew he had made plans against this event.

“You realize it will be difficult to raise it ourselves without raising immense vulnerabilities.” She still hadn’t forgotten Grathan’s wife and son, and it haunted her more than ever now. She supposed it was already a miracle she hadn’t miscarried after the torture she’d been through.

Now his gaze faltered. “I… Yes.”

She let her sternness fall away, making an effort to let down the barriers she’d raised in fear. Out of fear of what, she wasn’t quite sure. But it wasn’t fair to him to keep him out, when she’d asked him to help make this decision. “I will keep it. …You’ll be a father at last.”

His face lit up in the most glad smile she’d ever seen, and he stepped forward to gather her into his arms. “Thank you. I love you.”

She couldn’t say the words back, but she relaxed into his arms, completely, trustingly, sliding her hands up his back to his shoulders, and he held her tighter, stroking her hair. He was so happy, able to put aside his other worries for a while and just enjoy this moment. She wished she could do the same. But embraces were helping immensely.

Kisses helped more.


	6. Slaughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Akuliina gets her groove back, written to [RULES OF NATURE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3472Q6kvg0)
> 
> Some disturbing violence in this one

Chapter 6: Slaughter

She woke late in the night, about an hour before she was supposed to, a feeling of unease permeating her mind. She lay still for a moment, trying to catalogue it. It wasn’t the… the baby, she supposed she should call it a baby now, since she had learned of and acknowledged its presence. No, that was fine. Something was missing, somewhere, an acute but distant sense of loss that she couldn’t yet identify…

She slipped out of bed in the pitch darkness, unable to lie still; she had to vent her unease with movement. She didn’t turn on any lights, letting Quinn sleep, padding back and forth almost silently, her feet cold on the metal floor.

She heard and felt him stir, sit up in the darkness. “A-Akuliina?” His voice was deep and croaky with sleep, alluring, yet she couldn’t be distracted. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “Something has happened, I think. But I don’t know what it is.” Suddenly, she looked towards the comm, just before it began to go off. Summoning a robe to her, she slipped it on and lit some of the lights before answering it. “Yes?”

“Forgive me for waking you, my lord,” said her comms officer, Hayna, “but there’s an urgent call incoming from Countess Mareet.”

“My mother?” she asked softly, then gasped. “My father- it’s him.”

She felt Quinn’s anxious curiosity, but he stayed quiet. Hayna wasn’t in on their secret. “Put her through immediately.” She did not dismiss him; he should probably know what happened as well.

The holocomm lit up, and her mother’s face appeared before her, eyes wide, hair disheveled, her breath seething through her teeth. “Akuliina!”

“Mother! What’s happened?”

“Your father- your father’s dead. Lord Calamit-”

“I… I felt it. Did Lord Calamit do something to him?” Her heart raced, and involuntarily she bared her teeth. “I’ll kill him. What did he do? What happened?” Quinn came up behind her and put a supportive arm around her, though she really didn’t need it.

“A few minutes ago, he bombed Yrington. He claimed Evryn’s apprentice was raising an army there. But your father was there as well, and now – now he-” She turned away slightly, making a sharp, furious gesture, and Akuliina caught sight and sound of something smashing in the background.

“I see,” Akuliina said acidly. She gave a smile that was mostly snarl. With the rumours of her death, Calamit was most likely trying to eliminate her entire family to tighten his rule on Kuat even further. “I trust I can count on your assistance when I arrive to crush them both.”

“Come soon,” Mareet hissed. “Or I may act without you.” The holocomm shut off.

Akuliina turned away, bringing the lights all the way up. “It would probably make a better impression to be dressed before calling Calamit, I believe.” She shed the robe and pulled her grey dress from the closet.

“You’re going to call him? What for?” Quinn began to dress as well.

“I’d like to know if he’s aware of what he’s done. He must be made fully cognizant of the colossal mistake he’s made.” She glanced at him. “You can go back to bed, if you like. I’ll do it in the conference room.”

“I’d like to be there.” He had no reason to, as far as she knew, and she hoped he wouldn’t try to temper her rage that was currently at a barely-contained simmer.

She leant over her make-up table and began the somewhat lengthy process of applying her foundation, contouring, eyeshadow, and scarlet lipstick. “Do as you wish. I think you ought to go fetch the rest of the fleet personally and have them rendezvous with the Golden Conqueror near Kuat…” Quinn had suggested that with Trandosha under Aristheron’s control, the time for a full-frontal assault with all of her forces might have come. She had sent a summons to them, but hadn’t decided to send Quinn before. But now she wanted someone she trusted to bring them to her. She was acquainted the the ships’ captains, but they weren’t Quinn.

“Not Balmorra.”

“Why not Balmorra? You won’t be going down to the surface.” She raised an eyebrow at him, then registered he’d been attempting to use levity. “Not the time, dear.” She kissed the air distractedly in his general direction and began to make her way towards the door, tugging her gloves on.

“My apologies,” he murmured as he took up his place behind her in perfect formation. She could sense a lingering wish in him to show affection to her, but it was swiftly being taken over by duty and propriety.

She swept into the conference room. “Bridge, make contact with Kuat. I wish to speak with Lord Calamit.”

It took a long time to connect, and an even longer time for Hayna to work her way through operators and intermediaries, explaining each time that the Emperor’s Wrath wished to speak with Lord Calamit.

“He’s stalling,” she muttered, pacing like a caged manka cat, fingers twitching with the desire to do something, kill something. “Or else my mother already got him on the line.”

Quinn was stock still in contrast to her prowling, eyes straight ahead. “If I’d killed your father, my lady, I’d be afraid to speak to you as well.”

She gave him a rueful half-smile, then whirled back to her place as the holocomm flickered. “Calamit!”

“Young Lady Volkova,” said the old man, bowing to her. She didn’t miss the subtle insult at not calling her ‘Lord’ or ‘Wrath’. “I’m pleased to know of your survival, but I’m very busy, as you may imagine. How may I serve you-?”

She slammed her fist on the table, her emotions beginning to boil over out of her control. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Answer me!” It wasn’t a good impression, and she knew it, and she couldn’t stop it. She wanted to slap the smug complacency off Calamit’s face; slap his head off his spine while she was at it.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You killed my father,” she spat. “Don’t even try to deny it, I know what you have done!”

“I have no intention of killing Count Volkov. How did this come to pass?”

“Your lies will not save you, Calamit. When you bombed Yrington, he was present as well.”

“Dear, dear.” Calamit shook his head mock-sympathetically. “I had thought I was only eliminating Lord Kadolan’s chief apprentice. Are you quite sure?”

“I felt it,” she said, fists clenched until she felt her knuckles strain. “I felt his death in the Force! You’re an idiot, Calamit. Here I was, going to rid you of Evryn for the insults he did to me, and now, whether out of negligence or calculation, you’ve gone and given me reason to destroy you as well.”

Calamit’s wrinkled face darkened. “Have a care, Lady Volkova. You may answer only to the Emperor and the Dark Council, but I don’t take kindly to threats.”

He was treating her like a child, treating her exactly the same way he’d treated her ten years ago when she was first introduced to him, and her vision almost whited out with fury. “I don’t take kindly to having my kills stolen,” she snarled. “Killing my father was my duty, and mine alone. I don’t answer to the Dark Council. I don’t answer to you. Both you and Evryn will learn what it means to face the Wrath of the Emperor.”

“The Emperor is my only lord and master,” Calamit said. “I did not kill _his_ father; it is not his wrath I will weather. Good day, Lady Volkova.” The holocomm shut off and for a long moment she was dangerously still.

“You had better leave the room,” she said in a low voice to Quinn, who bowed hastily and left.

The instant the door closed behind him, she roared, and the heavy conference table ponderously tipped up and slammed against the other side of the room, leaving a deep dent. She punched the wall and was rewarded with another, smaller but deeper dent, but now her knuckles stung. Even with the Force giving her strength and protection, she’d torn through her glove and her fingers were bleeding.

The pain brought her back to herself a little. Instead of a tantrum, she needed to make a plan. She needed to plot her revenge, hold onto her anger a little longer, nurturing it inside her until she could unleash it on her targets and immolate them. She wasn’t sure what was up with her usual self-control, but she needed to contain it better.

She took a deep breath and stalked to the door. Quinn was waiting there, trying not to look deeply concerned, but she could feel it in him. She wanted to assure him she was fine, but… propriety. “Bridge. Now.”

Quinn was away, gone to meet the fleet partway and personally direct them to the rendezvous near Balmorra. He’d come up with a tentative plan of action for her invasion of Kuat, no mean proposition considering it was one of the most valuable planets in the Empire and her fleet, while not insubstantial, was tiny compared to the extent of the shipyards and their defenses and the rival fleets no doubt warring at this very instant.

She would prefer to avoid collateral damage to her own nation, but to truly prove her dominance, it was almost certainly inevitable, and holding back would be tantamount to suicide. She trusted Quinn’s cleverness would find a way while she wreaked her own havoc on the Sith personally. A conventional counsel would be to let the kaggath run its course and then stomp the victor, but what would that prove? They both had to know she was their destroyer. And she had faith in him facilitating that.

Force, how was she going to reward him after this? He’d smile and bow and claim that her success was his best reward; he didn’t need a raise; she wasn’t in charge of his promotions; either of the former or a commendation for assaulting an Imperial world would be awkward; she already slept with him… Perhaps she’d suggest bondage and let him top in that situation for once. She only let him tie her up a handful of times ever; it wasn’t that it didn’t arouse her, but she had panicked the first time at being completely immobile – the only time she’d used the ridiculous safeword he’d come up with.

In the meantime, she’d have to do without him for several days, sending the Golden Conqueror’s scout vessels to monitor the kaggath on Kuat until, reunited, they could descend on the planet and destroy its squabbling leadership. Kaggaths were so stupid. When she was in command, she’d delegate Jaesa to deal with that sort of nonsense. All the weaknesses revealed by this conflict, the infighting destroying Imperial resources, would be pared away once she had eliminated her opposition.

She almost had to laugh. Both Evryn and Calamit had undoubtedly attacked her in an attempt to keep her out of their fight, to prevent her from challenging their rival claims to Kuat’s rule. Instead, it had done the opposite and brought her down upon them. And her fleet, and what was left of the Volkov forces under her mother’s command, and for good measure she’d summoned Agent Elshinix from Dromund Kaas; the Chiss had responded reluctantly but obediently.

They had only traveled a day from Nar Shaddaa. Everything was running smoothly, even in Quinn’s absence. The Golden Conqueror’s captain, Captain Cheyomar, was efficient and unobtrusive. Quinn had only recommended the best for her flagship, after all. She was on the bridge, watching the swirl of hyperspace idly.

Suddenly she felt a tug at her mind, some foreign feeling of alarm. She looked around quickly, but there was no alarm on the bridge, no sudden hush or hum of voices.

“My lord?” Captain Cheyomar asked, approaching her at a respectful distance.

“Excuse me a moment,” she said politely, and walked swiftly to the elevator to her quarters.

Was it Jaesa’s feelings? No. Was it her mother? That was more difficult to determine, but no, it did not seem that way either. Her mother’s Force-bond was still greatly distraught but without sudden variation. She walked into her quarters, hardly seeing them, concentrating on that increasingly intense feeling.

Quinn? How could she be feeling Quinn? He wasn’t Force-sensitive-

But one didn’t need to be Force-sensitive to have a Force-bond with someone close. The only requirements were to be alive. And he was the father of the child she carried inside her. No one was closer. The only surprise should have been that she hadn’t noticed this bond before.

She shouldn’t dawdle musing through the ramifications of the bond. Why was he so disturbed? What was happening? Had the fleet been attacked? Had he been attacked on the way to the fleet?

 _The latter_ , the Force told her impatiently. _By whom?_ she demanded. And what was she supposed to do with this information, anyway? Quinn could take care of himself-

Quinn’s sense fell unconscious. Not good. What was she going to do about this?

First things first. She headed back up to the bridge, striding briskly to the helm. “Captain, drop the ship out of hyperspace immediately.”

Cheyomar looked at her, uncomprehending, but nodded immediately. “Helm, bring us out of hyperspace.” As the blue swirl wound down and streaks resolved back into stars, he looked back to her again.

She needed to be decisive, even though she had no idea what the right course of action was. Where had Quinn been? Who had attacked him? He wasn’t dead; what did they want with him? Should she wait to see if he could recover himself?

Waiting was for Jedi. “We’re not going to Kuat yet. Set course for the rest of the fleet.”

“Yes, my lord.” Quinn had been heading in that direction. She could provide assistance once she learned more of his situation. In the meantime… she had to restrain her impatience and worry, hide it from the bridge crew. She settled into her command chair and sipped water. She wanted alcohol, but even a Sith could become inebriated and useless.

Six hours went by. She waited as calmly as she could, trying to feel Quinn’s presence. He was awake now, she knew that much.

“My lord!” Hayna, the comms officer, spoke up. “We’re being pinged for an incoming message.”

“I’ll take the message,” Akuliina said, and the ship left hyperspace again for better transmission. She stood and made her way forward. “Who is it?”

Lord Calamit appeared in hologram before her. She glared with a snarl on her lips. “If you’re here to apologize, you have one chance to convince me of your sincerity.”

“Hardly,” Calamit said. “I’m here to issue a warning.”

“Second transmission incoming,” Hayna said.

“Put it up,” Akuliina ordered, her stomach flipping with misgiving.

The second image was of a Sith Lord she did not know, not quite as old as Calamit. “Greetings, my lord. I am Trathinus, apprentice of Calamit.”

“I don’t care,” Akuliina said.

The apprentice smiled, and Calamit smiled, and she wanted to stab both of them. “I think you will care very much.” He waved a hand and the holocam panned over to reveal… Quinn, chained by his wrists over his head, looking much the worse for wear. She frowned and made a hand gesture behind her back to Hayna.

“I’ve made the observation that your Commodore is exceptionally useful to you,” Calamit said. “In fact, some might assume he is the mainstay of your power. So I have deprived you of him. If you are to face me, you will do so without his aid. In the meantime, we’ll show him the best hospitality we can.”

Akuliina let her head tilt just slightly, her almost-non-reaction displaying her contempt. “Your reach may be long, but your foolishness is longer. My power is mine and I will not bow to clumsy bullying. Did you really think I’d be intimidated by kidnapping my _subordinate?_ Try my apprentice next time and I might take you seriously.” Jaesa would probably even find it fun, much more fun than Quinn did.

Calamit frowned. “You know well Kuat’s defenses, and even with your fleet you cannot hope to challenge me, not without your prize strategist.”

Quinn’s eyes opened and he looked straight at the holocam. “My apologies, my lord. I take full responsibility for this failure.”

“You were not given leave to speak,” Trathinus snapped, raising a hand, and Quinn was blasted with Force-lightning, falling limp in his chains and writhing. Akuliina choked down an angry gasp; of course they’d torture him, try to get a reaction from her.

It wasn’t Quinn’s responsibility. She’d sent him out alone in a hyperspace-capable gunship, not quite defenceless, but vulnerable enough. She’d have to… she’d have to apologize when she got him back. He might deny it, but she wasn’t going to let him be an idiot on his own.

“My l-lord has given me standing permission to s-speak, and she outranks you,” Quinn gasped, and she smirked.

“Your lord is not here, and you show an appalling lack of respect for your betters,” Trathinus said, and blasted him again. Akuliina tried not to let her snarl break her expression, though she was clenching her teeth. The more Trathinus and Calamit knew it affected her, the more they’d do it. And she could feel it, too, through this Force-bond she’d only just become aware of, feel that he was suffering on her behalf.

“Is there some point to this?” she said, crossing her arms coldly. “You think I really care if one of my minions is in pain? I only care that you have the gall to challenge me directly _after_ I’ve threatened you for challenging me indirectly.”

“And you have the gall to interfere in a sacred kaggath-” Calamit began.

Quinn was raising his head, slowly and painfully. “P-please,” he said, but even though the pain it sounded more scornful than pleading. “The Emp-p-peror’s Wrath is my commander. You t-truly think I fear _you?_ ” Oh Force, she’d married him for a reason.

Trathinus zapped him again, and again he writhed helplessly while her heart burned for him. “You will learn fear, and respect for all Sith, not only your little master.”

“D-don’t m-m-make m-me repeat m-myself,” Quinn hissed, almost inaudible, still defiant. “It’s irrit-t-tating.”

“Well, this is getting boring,” Akuliina said. She’d have to commend him later. “Did you have anything useful to say, Calamit?”

“Stay away from Kuat, or the suffering he will undergo will increase ten-fold.”

“No, I didn’t think you did.” She made eye contact casually with Hayna, who nodded, and then she looked back at Calamit. “You’re a fool. I don’t have time for your posturing. You were already marked for destruction.” She gestured without even offering a goodbye, and Hayna cut the channel.

“I have his location, my lord,” Hayna said eagerly. So did Akuliina, but numeric coordinates were more helpful to her navigator than feelings in the Force.

“Set course at once,” Akuliina ordered. “Cannons, be ready to fire on shield generators and turret emplacements the moment we emerge from hyperspace. I will deal with the rest… personally.”

It had been a day or two since Trathinus had called Akuliina, and every few hours the Sith lord came down to the cells to zap him with lightning. Just for fun, it seemed. Quinn took it with gritted teeth. Either Akuliina was coming for him, right into a trap, or she was going after Calamit directly, and she didn’t have the resources to win that conflict yet. He had to resist no matter what; if she was coming for him, he wouldn’t have too long to wait, hopefully, and if she was not… he had to keep his wits about him, to effect an escape and make his way back to her side before she got in too much trouble.

It had been a quiet period… but now alarms began to blare in the distance, and simultaneous hope and apprehension swept through him. _Emperor’s bones_. She’d come for him. And undoubtedly she was furious beyond reason. Now that this path was becoming a reality, he wondered who he should be most afraid for, her, himself, or the Imperial soldiers who occupied the rest of this place, wherever it was. Explosions shook the ground; she was already bombarding its defenses.

As Lord Trathinus entered the cell block and approached his cell, he decided he had enough to be afraid for himself. His words earlier had only partly been true. Things were evolving, and none of it was under his control.

The coordinates led to a small secret base on the side of a large asteroid in a largely empty system. Once, it might have been used to fight against pirates, a staging base for fighter wings and small frigates, but commerce no longer passed through this system, rendering it more-or-less useless. She was lucky that it wasn’t a larger fortification; the Golden Conqueror would be more than enough to deal with its defenses. It wasn’t designed to take on capital ships. Calamit had wanted Quinn to disappear, not surround him with impenetrable but obvious defenses. It would have worked… if not for her bond with him, that Calamit couldn’t know about, and for Hayna and her team, her talented comms officers. They were getting a raise.

One volley from the cannons destroyed the shield generators before they had time to raise the shields, as she had commanded, which meant picking off the cannon emplacements was relatively simple. She didn’t even have to send out the fighters. When the base’s ability to fight back had been reduced to sparks and whimpers, a single shuttle departed the Golden Conqueror.

The shuttle touched down in the main hangar; the air outside was still and silent except for the blaring klaxons, but she knew it was a lie; she could feel many lives in the Force. They were setting an ambush for her. Which only meant they’d be rushing to their deaths. She stood and walked deliberately to the loading ramp, emerging from darkness through the billowing steam, fixing her goal clearly in mind – _find Quinn_ – so that even when she submerged herself in her rage, she would not forget him. Her arrival undoubtedly placed him in grave danger, and every second away from him was another second he could be killed.

She stepped into the hangar, her gaze hardened to golden durasteel, lightsabers growling in her fists, and faced a forty-man firing squad entrenched behind heavy crates, dividers, and portable ray shields. Heat rushed across her skin as her heart began to pound thunderously, and her mouth stretched in a mirthless, animalistic smile of anticipation.

She shrieked and took flight as they began to fire back, as a disciplined, unified whole at first, and when she kept coming, increasingly in desperation and panic. There was no thought in her mind other than red death; weapons, limbs, and heads tumbled away from her onslaught. She was wind, she was fire, scorching the lives she touched away into nothingness.

When every soldier lay in pieces, she came back to herself briefly. The others in her shuttle had crept down the loading ramp after her. “Vette,” she said, and her voice seemed to echo strangely in her own ears. “Lock down the hangar. Pierce, Broonmark, guard the door. No one is escaping.”

“Yep, will do,” Vette said, with a gulp.

“…Time me,” she suggested sardonically as a parting shot. She turned, allowing the red mist to consume her again, and sped through the main door to the rest of the base. _Quinn, I’m coming for you_.

“She is magnificent,” Trathinus said softly, watching Akuliina’s progress on a display of security cameras, holding Quinn casually by the throat in the Force. Quinn struggled feebly and received a jolt of electricity for his trouble. “She is truly a fine Sith, worthy of her title. But she has set herself against my master, and so…” He shrugged. “It is a great honour that my master allows me to kill her.”

Quinn coughed a weak laugh; his breath rasped in his constricted throat. “You think you can?” On the screen, Akuliina zig-zagged down another corridor, reflecting turret fire back where it came from seemingly effortlessly. This was a new level even for her, even fiercer than one time on a capital ship against two wardroids…

Calamit chuckled. “I’d hoped she wouldn’t find this place, but I am not terribly upset that she has. We’ve made _some_ preparations against this event, Commodore. She has lost her mind to the Dark Side. She is no longer in control. She is powerful, yes – do not underestimate her, Trathinus. But she can be easily manipulated in this state.”

It was true. She herself had predicted such a thing multiple times. And he wasn’t at her side to keep her mind clear and focused. Or, she was focused… she was focused only on him, at the cost of everything else, maybe even her own life. It was all his fault…

“And I don’t think she’s even noticing her injuries,” Trathinus said, gently squeezing Quinn’s throat just in case he’d forgotten about that. “They’ll catch up to her. Probably all at once.”

“Ah, she’s arrived,” Calamit said. “Let’s greet her properly, shall we?”

“With pleasure, my lord,” Trathinus said. He lit his lightsaber and flung his arm out, the edge of the blade almost lying against Quinn’s throat. Oh Emperor, he was going to be beheaded as soon as she walked through that door.

The security door was unlocked, but as he watched, the centre began to deform inwards, towards them, until suddenly it imploded with a crash and hurtled halfway across the chamber.

She stood in the doorway, recovering from a side-kick – _she’d kicked a half-metre-thick door in_ – with her chest heaving. The temperature in the chamber actually rose as she stalked forward, swaying drunkenly, and he felt a power exuding off her, like static electricity, tickling his skin. Her eyes were… literally glowing, and he felt shivers running down his spine; he’d never seen that before. There was no trace of anything besides hatred and fury in her face, no recognition, no mercy, teeth bared, wild as a krayt dragon. Her armour was covered in smoking burn marks, but she seemed uninjured from what he could see.

“Welcome,” Trathinus began grandly. Oh good, a monologue before he was killed. “You’ve fought valiantly to reach this place, but you-”

Akuliina shrieked, the sound echoing piercingly through the confined space, and flung a hand forwards, and Quinn found himself hurled backwards, back into an empty cell, the door of which shut and locked. Her lightsaber followed, thrown by the Force, stabbing into the lock and melting it. The only way to get him out now was to cut through the bars. He was safe… for varying definitions of safe. He struggled to get up, but he could hardly move. The torture had worn him down too much. He could only lie there and watch them.

She charged at Trathinus with her white hair flying, as Calamit watched, and Trathinus let her come, an eager and bloodthirsty grin of his own plastered on his face.

It happened almost too quickly to see. She must have triggered a pressure pad, or a motion sensor, or something – droid arms shot out of the walls and floor, the ones to restrain problem prisoners, only these ones were _fast_. They seized her arms; at the same time, automated turrets deployed, flame turrets, laser turrets, tranquilizer dispensers, and immediately fired. Trathinus lunged, his lightsaber poised to stab.

A hideous banshee screech echoed in the small chamber, but when he could see her again, she was not on fire, nor was she impaled, thank the Emperor. She’d flipped backwards, breaking two of the droid arms as they tried to hold on to her, and Trathinus was reeling backwards from a kick in the face, but her left shoulder appeared dislocated. She snapped the other droid arms off with a flick of her right lightsaber, then jumped backwards as more lasers fired at her. She’d been driven into cover behind a torture rack, and he heard a growl as she set her shoulder back into place.

The droid arms were out of commission, which meant the tranquilizer dispensers were useless, but the turrets were still active. How could she defeat them with lightsabers alone?

She sprang out of cover, jumping impossibly high, using a computer console to leap even higher. The turrets were moving to track her, but now she was level with them, slashing one, than the other. She was turning towards the third and fourth when Trathinus moved back on the attack with another stab.

She bent backwards, sliding under his strike, kicking him in the ankle as he overreached. He stumbled and they both scrambled to recover; her flailing lightsabers took out another turret, whether by chance or design. One flame turret and a Sith left.

Darting right as the turret went off, she put Trathinus between it and her and then charged again, backing Trathinus into the turret. The turret automatically retracted as Trathinus came closer, but then the enemy Sith sidestepped, giving it a clear line of fire… but she flung one lightsaber at it, scarlet carving whirling trails through the air, and the turret exploded like the others.

There was no change in her expression, a horrible mask of fury and hatred, but she seemed slower, just a little. She’d been hit, probably by one of the laser turrets, probably without even noticing it. All that was keeping her up was probably adrenaline and the Force. Her attacks against Trathinus were vicious but not as well coordinated as they had been, and slowly the taller Sith was gaining the upper hand, driving her into the back of the room. Quinn wanted to cry encouragement to her, but didn’t dare distract her, even if he’d had the strength.

She was right back against the wall, struggling ferociously, batting away each of Trathinus’s attacks. This might be the end… and he couldn’t look away, his heart screaming for her. He didn’t care about himself; if she fell, he would be immediately next, but without her, and her unborn child, there wasn’t much to live for. Would the Sith decapitate her, or simply stab her?

Trathinus stabbed… and missed, his lightsaber biting deep into the wall over her shoulder. Before he could withdraw, she’d slashed upwards, cutting his lightsaber in two – and most of his fingers from his hand.

Trathinus staggered back, clutching his hand. She shut off both lightsabers and her arms shot forwards, fingers curled into claws. Trathinus froze, a horrified expression on his face that told Quinn she’d caught him by the neck, a situation that gave him some grim satisfaction. _Not so nice when someone does it to you, is it?_

Trathinus’s boots slowly left the ground as her right hand moved upwards, tendons standing out and hand shaking slightly with the intensity of her emotion. She didn’t break his neck, like she normally would, or throttle him to death. No, instead she formed her other trembling hand into a fist and began to make a slow pulling motion. What-?

“Take a good look, Calamit,” she said in a low voice, the first words she’d spoken since she arrived. “This is what I’m going to do to you.”

 _Oh Emperor,_ he was going to vomit, as Trathinus began to scream in horror and agony. She was tearing the flesh from Trathinus’s face. Quinn turned away, rolling to face away from them, covering his ears, but he couldn’t get that image out of his head, and he couldn’t block out the screams completely.

The screaming stopped, but instead there were only awful, sickening wet rending noises. He dared to look up and saw a blood-covered skull, meat hanging down the chest of the corpse. He retched, closing his eyes, and vomited the little sustenance left in his stomach onto the floor.

“You’re next,” Akuliina hissed, and he heard a crack and a soft thump. She’d used the skull to smack the ‘end call’ button and let the body slide to the floor. Now she was – _oh space_ – she was heading in his direction, eyes still glowing, energy still crackling around her. She lit a lightsaber to hack through the bars of the cell and stepped towards him; he crawled away backwards with the last of his strength until he found a corner. He shouldn’t fear her, she was there for him, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she…?

_What if she killed him for failing so catastrophically like this?_

She reached out as he looked up at her, petrified, and she touched his shoulder. The glow in her eyes faded, and she didn’t exactly relax, but she seemed more… herself again. As if he’d been a ground for the deadly current running through her. There was a flicker of humanity in her eyes now, even of relief. Then she pitched forward onto her knees, her arms wrapping around him, her face buried in his neck. “I was in time.”

“Yes,” he managed to croak out.

She drew away again, hands running over him, checking him for injury. Strangely, his body felt less painful where she touched. “Can you stand? I want to get you out of here before I finish things.”

“I’m afraid I cannot,” he admitted. She nodded, pulled his arm over her shoulder, hooked her arm around his leg, and lifted him onto her shoulders. He felt slightly ridiculous, being carried so easily by someone nearly twenty centimetres shorter than him, or maybe that was just the blood rushing to his head.

The corridors outside were quiet and still. Bodies and severed limbs littered the ground, and blaster burn marks scored the walls. Small fires guttered still in some of them. A faint haze of smoke hung in the air, already mostly filtered out by the ventilation system. There were deep careless slashes from her lightsabers everywhere, and many of the lights had been knocked out. He closed his eyes. Normally this wouldn’t bother him, but after the execution he’d just witnessed, and his stomach’s subsequent reaction to it, he couldn’t look. And they were all Imperial soldiers, too. Ostensibly they were all on the same side. Most of them were – had been – probably good men.

She let him slide to the floor in a corner. “More are coming. Don’t move.”

He couldn’t move far if he tried, watching her dart off. Dark helmets were bobbing in the distance, and then red light began to flash down the corridor towards her. And screams followed shortly after.

He strained to reach a fallen blaster pistol, but it was just out of reach. He didn’t like being defenceless, even if she was just over there, and no one was paying attention to him…

He heard a footstep from his other side and looked over. Correction: no one _had_ been paying attention to him. There was an officer and two soldiers there now, aiming at him. But he’d just got his hands on the blaster pistol. It spat light in his shaking hand, hitting one soldier in the groin and the officer – by chance – in the chest, before they had the chance to shoot. Then Akuliina was there, appearing as if out of nowhere, the last soldier suspended and impaled on one lightsaber.

He dropped the blaster as she sheathed her sabers and bent to pick him up again.

She dropped him in the shuttle, where Vette immediately scanned him with a med scanner and stuck him with at least two needles of kolto, maybe more. He couldn’t tell at this point. Akuliina had disappeared again. Vette wrapped him in a blanket and let him slump against the crash harness.

She reappeared ten minutes later, Broonmark and Pierce beside her, and they lifted off.

“Twenty-eight minutes and forty-three seconds,” Vette said quietly as Akuliina settled herself in the seat beside him.

“What?” she asked.

“You said to time it,” Vette said.

“Ah. I don’t remember.”

“How many did you kill?” Pierce asked, and the Talz rumbled something that Quinn was too tired to translate.

Akuliina shrugged. “I lost count. All of them.”

“All of them?” he forced through his sluggish mouth. From what he’d seen of the base, it held maybe two hundred personnel. She’d killed _all_ of them? In twenty-nine minutes, rounded up?

She looked over at him, eyes cool and unapologetic. “Calamit needed to know his mistake, Commodore. He needed to be burned, hard and fast. Others will know of it, and will forebear to challenge me.” Or would criticize her ruthless slaughter, that she herself normally spoke out against…

Vette opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again, and silence fell in the shuttle.

After she’d seen Quinn off to medbay, she returned to the bridge. “Guns, fire at will. I want the entire base destroyed. I want the entire asteroid turned into dust.” She thought for a moment. “A week’s pay to the man who destroys the most rocks larger than a fighter.” They had computers. They could calculate it.

This incentive had effect. The space between her ship and the asteroid lit up with bright green, pouring immense energy into the wreck of the base. Anything left to explode exploded, and then they settled in to the task of cracking the asteroid itself.

Quinn wouldn’t understand. She’d needed that catharsis, needed an outlet for the blind unthinking rage that had consumed her after his capture. Her father’s death had angered her, but Quinn was _hers_ , body and soul, and no one would touch him. If she’d waited for vengeance until she found Calamit, she thought she might actually go mad. Only the sea of death that washed over her, feeling each life-force torn from its body and slipping away into the ether, had quieted her bloodlust for now. She could focus again.

He wouldn’t understand. And she regretted that he wouldn’t. But he was safe now and that was all that mattered.

She didn’t leave the bridge until there was nothing left.


	7. Outnumbered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This used to be the final chapter. o_O Then the story got a lot longer.
> 
> Soundtrack time!!! Calamit’s palace soundtrack is [Kyojin no Shinkou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MbYHNPD5Ps) from SnK because it's spooky… Jaesa’s rampage was provided by Disturbed ([Hell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvAmUKgH7HI) and other tracks, not clear which ones anymore). Akuliina’s charge is [Beat of the Rising Sun](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4PEbjSqC7A) (I’ve been waiting so long to put this track in! <3); Akuliina’s main fight is [Night of Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRbhLtjOiRc). And I used a bit of classic [ANH](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHQrcyerVQQ) soundtrack for Quinn’s fight! (I know it’s cheating to use this music and it’s not Imperial enough but I just had it on in the background and it helped me get through the slog)
> 
> Consideration of orbital mechanics in Star Wars: they probably apply, but on the other hand, these ships have engines powerful enough to transfer smoothly from atmosphere to space.
> 
> A great number of chapters in this story begin with people waking up. o_O

Chapter 7: Outnumbered

She woke in her bed without any idea of how she had gotten there. The last thing she remembered was entering her quarters and collapsing face-first on the floor, all her exertion suddenly catching up to her. The release of having destroyed the immediate object of her wrath so completely, so utterly, had rendered her unconscious the moment she reached safety.

She stirred and became aware of a presence next to her – a beloved, hale, whole, Force-bonded presence. She pulled her eyes open and found the lights were dim but on, and rolled towards him urgently. He was awake and watching her. “Qui- Malavai!”

“I’m here,” he whispered soothingly, reaching out to her. “You saved me.”

“You’re well,” she said, snuggling into him. He smelled like kolto. “You were in kolto?” How long had she been asleep?

“I was. And perhaps you could have used some too.” His hands wandered down her arms, her sides, finding bandages and new scars she hadn’t even noticed. Apparently she’d been shot at least five times without having felt it. Her left shoulder, the one she’d dislocated, was stiff and aching. “The droid told me you’ve been sleeping since you came back.”

“How long was that?”

She felt a twinge of concern from him. “Three days.”

Three days she’d been unconscious and Quinn had been in kolto. “The fleet?”

“Jaesa’s taken charge; I’m still officially in recovery. We’re headed to Kuat. The fleet is a day behind us, but Agent Elshinix has arrived.”

She relaxed again. “Good.” She rested in his arms, listening to his heartbeat. Glad that he still had a heartbeat. “Are you angry?” She asked in curiosity, not in guilt – she felt no guilt over her actions.

He twitched in surprise. “Me? I thought you would be angry with me.”

“For what? I should have known better than to send you away alone. That is not on you.”

“It was my own mistake that brought his forces to me.”

“Do you _want_ me to blame you?”

“No. But I…” She felt him thinking. “For destroying the base?”

“Yes.” And everyone in it. He’d been upset when he heard how many Imperial soldiers she’d killed without pause or mercy, just to prove a point. Now that she’d rested, it was appearing to her that they hadn’t really been worth her time. It had been a selfish indulgence, when there were only two deaths that would mean anything in the end. But she couldn’t risk taking out her fury on her own loyal crew…

He hesitated. “No. That’s simply… how… how you are. I should have expected it. Did expect it. May as well be angry with Dromund Kaas for raining.” He rested a hand against her belly, though she wasn’t showing yet. “No, I was concerned for the baby, but the droid assures me it’s fine.”

She covered his hand with hers, relieved of a worry she’d almost not thought about, shockingly enough. “Right. Good. I… passed out before I had any idea of checking.” She frowned at him. “I’m not completely convinced about _you_ , but I won’t push you.”

His eyes were calm, fathomless. “I knew who you were when I married you, what I was getting into. I knew you might do things like this, and that I would not be able to change your mind, so if I truly let it bother me, I’d be a fool. You’re right: I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. However, I know you don’t normally waste Imperial life. And…” He smiled faintly. “You did rescue me.”

She gave him a demure half-smirk. “I did, didn’t I? How could I not, when you were so beautifully defiant to them? In fact, there was something I was meaning to do for you because of it…” Her hands began to wander to improper places, and he gasped and flinched, his spine – and other things – stiffening. “I was going to ask if you were interested, but I think I know the answer.”

“A-Akuliina- By the Emperor-”

She cackled, pushing him on his back, and sliding under the covers.

The next day they were both on duty, as aloof as asteroids. “I’ll go in immediately with Agent Elshinix to prepare for this confrontation. You’ll wait for the rest of the fleet at Balmorra and then hop over to Kuat at the appointed time unless I signal to delay.”

“I hate Balmorra,” he muttered.

“I know you do, but the way things are going, I’ll probably own that soon as well,” she teased. “Don’t crash there, it would be awkward.”

“You’re going to be completely isolated… Are you going to rendezvous with Countess Mareet?”

“No, that’s too obvious. She’ll have gone into hiding after my father’s slaying. She wouldn’t be able to hide my presence, even were I to find her. I _will_ be in contact with her, but I will not physically visit her.”

“That’s what I’m for,” Agent Elshinix said primly.

“I’ll issue a challenge from the ruins of Yrington. Jaesa and my mother will be my messengers; Agent Elshinix will facilitate communications. And to ensure that their battling fleets don’t simply bombard me, you’ll be tying them up in orbit and dominating them with your usual brilliant strategy.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said. “We are dreadfully outnumbered, by any one side, disregarding the Drive Yard defenses.”

“I _am_ aware of this, you know. I know you have a plan.”

“Yes, to use them against each other, to force their most powerful ships to attack each other first while I pick off the weaker ones. I’ll need more up-to-date information to determine exactly how. I’d also like to know which parts of the station are currently owned by whom, and if I can exploit that.”

“I will get that,” she said. “The Agent will transmit it to you.” Agent Elshinix blinked her glowing red eyes in stoic affirmation.

“If our moves are not precisely coordinated, you could fall,” he said. “I’m not inclined to surrender to either Calamit or Kadolan.”

“Then don’t be late,” she said, smirking at him. “I’m counting on you.” She wanted to touch him, hold his face in her hands, breathe in his breath. She didn’t.

“Yes, my lady.”

Agent Elshinix had successfully brought Akuliina and her apprentice to ground in a disguised shuttle, and everyone had since been very busy. While Akuliina sent Jaesa to journey to Kuat City, she herself scouted Yrington for a suitable location to fight Evryn and Calamit in – preferably simultaneously. The Intelligence agent had been infiltrating one of the planet’s major communications hubs, putting Akuliina in contact with Mareet Volkova and downloading as much military intelligence as she could.

What Agent Elshinix transmitted to her was displeasing news, more so when she was able to contact her mother. “Mother, the Terror and the Glory are listed as among Calamit’s forces.”

“Yes, he’s been attempting to steal everything we had, simply because your father is dead.”

“Why did you not stop him? The Commodore will need those ships.”

“The Commodore will have those ships, but there’s not much I can do when I’m trying not to fall victim to an orbital strike as well. There’s been a cruiser in orbit over the main estate for the past four days. The only reason it hasn’t fired is because I haven’t been there and they can’t find me.”

“I’m still disappointed, Mother. You could have sent them to me.”

“What’s done is done. They will serve you should you call.”

“Fine. Whatever you say. I need you to find Evryn Kadolan and deliver my invitation to him this evening.”

“I understand.” She could hear the approval in her mother’s voice.

“Do try not to attack him directly; I want him fresh for combat.”

“Of course, darling. I despise Evryn for what he did to you, but it’s Calamit whom I wouldn’t be able to control myself around.”

“Jaesa’s on it. Have you any idea where to go to find him?” He wouldn’t be too far underground; he was a charismatic leader and needed to be visible to use it.

“Yes. Have no fear. He will be in contact with you at the time you specify.”

“Good. I’ve a dance floor picked out and it would be a shame to waste it.” She hung up and turned to survey her chosen arena. It was the roof of an abandoned factory, one end blown wide open by an orbital blast. Once it had made parts that were then shipped to the ring overhead to be incorporated into new vehicles, both spacecraft and groundcraft. Now it was mute, the hum of industry gone from this area. It had been difficult to find a potential location for the duel, someplace wide and flat enough to have a fair fight, with enough obstacles to keep things interesting without giving cover for ambushes. The area was full of craters, collapsed structures, and piles of rubble that would be impassable to anyone on foot. She’d needed the boost on her borrowed speeder bike more than once to get here.

Somewhere nearby, her father’s remains lay buried – or perhaps he had simply been vapourized. She stretched out in an attempt to sense him, out of curiousity, but the Force here was too full of shock and horror and grief to isolate a single upper-mid-level Sith. Thousands had died in that bombardment. And all to kill Kadolan’s apprentice? That was Kadolan’s sort of trick; she had thought Calamit more cunning than that. Giving Kadolan a taste of his own medicine, perhaps?

Yrington as a whole was not destroyed. The industrial north end of town had been hit hard, but most of the city was still alive, and beginning to recover. The ruined area had been barricaded off from the citizens, and while she’d seen looters slipping about, trading the occasional potshot with local law enforcement, they were few and weak and would play no part in her plans. But, should the worst-case scenario occur, the remainder of the city ought to be exempt.

All was ready. Now her forces would play their parts.

It was so thrilling to get proper missions, Jaesa reflected as she slipped, ghost-like, through the shadowed corridors of Calamit’s palace. She liked having Lord Akuliina as a master, but she was so hands-on that she didn’t delegate many important tasks to her apprentice. So being sent to deliver her challenge to one of her enemies was very exciting.

She’d broken in through a side gate; the guards there had been too strong-willed to be mind-tricked so she’d killed them and walked in. Now she prowled the halls, looking for Calamit’s lair. She was no stranger to moving unobtrusively through palaces, unnoticed by everyone else who was supposed to be there, although Lady Geselle’s mansion had been considerably better lit. Even Lord Akuliina believed in decent lighting. But she embraced Darkness, both inside and out, and she didn’t need to see to know where she was going or to sense beings ahead of her. She didn’t miss that life, hated that life, full of pettiness and fear and submission; she had been nobody, even with her powers, and now she was somebody. She pretended that her heart wasn’t beating just a little faster than usual. It was only excitement at her mission, nothing more.

The hallway opened into a great throne room, still only dimly lit, but she sensed four people – Sith, all of them, Calamit’s apprentices, if she had to guess. She grinned to herself. This would be a considerable challenge. She could sense they were aware of her, of their eagerness to fight her; it seemed that Lord Akuliina’s slaying of Trathinus had left a gap they each sought to fill. If only she were clever enough not just to sense these weaknesses, but exploit them, too… Oh well! Red lightsabers ignited in the darkness, and she lit her yellow double-blade and sprang forward to meet them.

She was not nearly as good as Lord Akuliina, but she was good enough. Lord Akuliina worked her hard in saber play, and she’d bested Sith lords before. These four apprentices were uncoordinated, each hoping to seize all the glory for themself; if she played them well enough they might attack each other instead of her – no, that wasn’t likely. They would still hate her more than they craved power.

Saber cracked on saber, as she blocked first one, than another, a snarl of concentration twisting her lips. Their eyes gleamed hungrily in the light of their blades. They were trying to surround her, and she stepped back swiftly, swinging her saber in a burning shield before lunging back forward to stab. Her target blocked too slow, and her blade plunged through his shoulder; his defence dropped entirely in pain and she ripped her blade up and sideways, near-beheading him. The other three were on the attack, and she danced backwards again, batting away their strikes. The Dark Side was swelling in her, fear and hate rendering her ultra-sensitive to its whispers and demands.

She stomped one foot forward, sending shockwaves in the Force rippling at her enemies, and saw two of them flinch. The third was hurtling towards her; she flipped her saber end over end, beating her back, and counterattacked the first two, anticipating their moves. So it went, back and forth, scarlet against amber, no audible sound but the blaze of lightsabers, the rasp of breath, the shift of cloth and clip of boots – yet her soul was filled with a roaring that nearly drowned out her ears.

Another one fell, gut pierced by her blade, groaning in his death-agony. The others drew back, re-evaluating her. She didn’t intend to give them a breather and came on, running a fine line between control and chaos. Lord Akuliina always said she was sloppy, but she despised control and she’d gladly fight on pure instinct if she could. Fight, and kill, and win!

She locked sabers with one, and felt in his pressure that he didn’t know how to fight a double-blade. She grinned at him and swept the second end up, bisecting him. One left. But now she sensed a great darkness drawing nearer, a terrifying darkness, stronger even than Lord Akuliina. She had to finish this now, because that presence was undoubtedly Lord Calamit. Her last opponent seemed heartened by her master’s sense, and they plunged towards each other.

This last one dual-wielded, like Lord Akuliina, though her style was different. Jaesa would find out if she was better or not, and hacked brutally at her defences, forcing her back. The roaring of the Dark Side was threatening to burst out of her; her sweat-drenched dark hair was falling in her eyes; her limbs burned with gleeful exertion as she tore forward like a rabid dog. Now that she had no others to distract her, this apprentice was toast.

Her opponent knew it; she could feel the fear from her like a cold draft. She was going to try something clever… would she be able to catch it? She couldn’t let up the intensity to watch for it.

One red blade stabbed high, and as she twirled to block it, the other went for her knees. There was no time for shock or fear, only reaction through action – she leaped, her weight barely in place to spin over the deadly thrust. She was as surprised as the other woman when her boot met with a face, sending the apprentice staggering away. Jaesa followed and in a shriek it was over.

The shadows at the back of the hall shifted, and Jaesa had to squint to see the tall old man standing there. Only the red floor lighting and her own brilliant saber were left to illuminate the hall, but in the Force there was a far deeper darkness advancing towards her. She had half-planned to attack him when she met him, to dispose of him for her master; not anymore. She hesitated to even approach him. This man carried no weapon, but he was out of her league.

“Well done,” said the old man, and Jaesa felt shivers run down her spine. “For a former Jedi.”

“I am a Jedi no longer,” Jaesa snarled. “I never was.”

She blinked, and the figure had melted into the darkness. “I think that you lie, child. You are certainly no Sith. Your commitment to the Dark is… forced, contrived.”

“No!” Jaesa shouted angrily, looking around to find out where he’d gone. “I am a Sith! The Dark gave me freedom, and power – it has given me everything I ever craved and promises me more!”

The raspy voice seemed to come from everywhere. “You carve a bloody, hedonistic trail through the galaxy in Lady Volkova’s wake, always killing, and killing – killing those who turn to the Light, those who belittle you, or just because you are bored. And to what avail? You doubt, you fear, that you are still Jedi deep inside, that you are not worthy of being a Sith, and so you drive your lust to excess to compensate, offering sacrifices to an uncaring god. You want to be certain no one else doubts you the way you doubt yourself.”

“That’s not true!” Jaesa cried, turning, brandishing her lightsaber at the shadows. “I loathe the Jedi! I completely reject my pitiful past! I have no doubts!”

“You fear that you will never measure up to your master, who was born into this life. Child, you place your own chains on yourself, shackling yourself to her and her approval, like you always did with the Jedi, didn’t you? A good little dog, you bark at those she tells you to. And she sees your desperation and she laughs inside.”

Lord Akuliina had never given a hint that she thought Jaesa was wavering, or overcompensating, or whatever Calamit was trying to imply. But… if she did think that, it would be just like her to laugh behind her back. Whatever, it didn’t matter anyway. “Shut up, shut up! I don’t answer to you!”

“You just want attention. All the evil, wicked things you do, you do only to beg for her notice. You are a pathetic, frightened child in a big dark world.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark!” Jaesa cried. “I am the dark!”

There was a whisper behind her. “You lie,” said the raspy voice.

Jaesa whirled, her lightsaber raised – and it was ripped from her grasp and thrown across the room, and she followed it, hitting the floor hard. She was crushed to her knees, unable to even raise her gaze against the immense pressure forcing her down.

“If you are done being entertaining, you should leave,” Calamit said. “With such a weak apprentice, she’s really not worth my time, and you are not even worth killing.”

She was weak, wasn’t she? She was a failure as a Jedi and a Sith. She couldn’t return to Lord Akuliina with her mission unfinished…

 _Get up, you frakking fool!_ The voice in her head spoke with Lord Akuliina’s tones, though it wasn’t actually Lord Akuliina speaking across half the planet. _You think I care whether or not you’re trying too hard as long as you serve my will? You kneel to no one but me and the Emperor!_

She was weaker than Lord Akuliina, it was true. Weaker, and less thoughtful, less focused, more volatile. She was a weapon for her master to use when she wished. But Lord Akuliina was ultimately more powerful than this man, she truly believed, though his strength in the Dark Side was indescribable. So, too, Jaesa could be stronger. There was no ‘if’. There was no ‘try’. She would stand!

Her lips parted in a feral grimace of defiance, and slowly, slowly, she dragged herself to her feet, until she stood straight again before Calamit. Why had she listened to his words in the first place, let him bait her into debate? There was no debate to be had here. Lord Akuliina would speak, and he would listen. “I am an envoy for my master, and you will hear her message!”

Dusk was falling over Yrington; above, the Drive Yards twinkled with their artificial lights, slashing across the sky and the dimmer, more distant stars. Akuliina flicked the transmission switch on the holocomm unit. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Lady Volkova,” Calamit acknowledged her… barely.

“Lovely to see you again,” Evryn cried. “I see you are no worse for wear.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “No thanks to you, traitor of my heart.”

“Can I be blamed, for playing the game the way it was meant to be played? And I won, all those years ago, you only don’t know it yet.”

 _What was that supposed to mean?_ “I did not call to make small talk. I am issuing a challenge to you: meet me upon the roof of the Heston-Pother Building in one hour, and we’ll have it out once and for all. No more bombs, no more kidnappings. Only Sith against Sith, as it was meant to be.”

“And what shall happen if I refuse?” Calamit said. “Perhaps this is a trap, and you shall bombard me from space as I bombarded your father.”

“I have no reason to come, either,” Evryn said. “You are weak, not worth my time. You did marvelous things on Trandosha, but lizards are slow and clumsy.” She saw his camera jostle, and wondered if her mother were about to lose control. It would reflect poorly on Akuliina if she did so.

She smiled. She’d expected something like that. “I have no reason to break my word. Bombardment is cowardly and dishonourable, and besides, if I haven’t killed it with my own hands, I don’t usually believe it’s dead. Lost bodies are an old trope, and not one I’m willing to indulge in tonight. No, I think you will find my proposal very appealing very soon.”

Her personal comm in her pocket vibrated slightly. More perfect timing she could not have wished for. She pulled it out and held it to her lips. “Agent Elshinix, open a broad-band channel to all ships in Kuat’s space, and the Drive Yards.”

“Channel open, my lord.”

 _They will serve you should you call_. “Good evening, all; this is Akuliina Volkova, the Emperor’s Wrath. I am sure you are all loyal citizens of the Empire; I am sure many of you, like me, are tired of this petty conflict that has become a stumbling block to our combined power.” With half an ear she could hear Evryn protesting that it wasn’t petty, but he was interrupted by an aide’s appearance – perhaps confirming the words she was about to say. “Now is the time to settle that conflict. I command your obedience towards that end. No doubt you’ve noticed the ships that just exited hyperspace; those ships are mine. If you are keen to see this ended, join with them now. If not, know that you will waste your lives in a futile show of resistance that only furthers the cause of our mutual enemies. Akuliina out.”

Many ships would resist. The Glory and the Terror of Volkov would break away from Calamit’s control immediately, if they could do so without being destroyed, and some others might join Quinn out of fear or idealism. But if Evryn had won his forces through his charisma, most of them would surely be loyal, and Calamit had ruled for decades; fear of him would be pervasive throughout the home fleet. The Drive Yards were still mostly under the rule of Calamit or those loyal to him; she had the vague idea that Quinn would lure the fleets away from the planet a little so he wouldn’t have to deal with them as well until later.

Both her enemies were staring at her, their faces changing, dropping their civil masks. Were they so upset to lose even a few ships? No… while Calamit was looking pinched, Evryn’s livid look was all out of proportion to losing a ‘few’ ships. “Very well, Volkova. I will meet you on your rooftop in one hour. Adieu.”

“As will I,” Calamit said grimly. “You have made your last mistake, girl.”

She laughed as they shut off their signals. “No. I have finally regained control.”

“My lord,” Agent Elshinix said softly through her commlink. “The fleet…”

“What is it, agent?”

“Seventy-five percent of Lord Kadolan’s fleet has defected to Commodore Quinn’s command. Only twenty percent of Lord Calamit’s has defected. But…”

“Indeed.” She was stunned, then suspicious. From Evryn’s look, the move hadn’t been planned – on his part. If not his, then whose? She was quite certain she hadn’t been _that_ persuasive. “I’m sure Commodore Quinn will be suitably cautious… still, inform him I said to watch his back.”

“Yes, my lord.”

She couldn’t worry about it too much. The space battle could still take hours, and she couldn’t be distracted from her own battle to come.

Quinn stared momentarily at the radar in disbelief before frowning at the bridge crew. “You’re certain of these numbers?”

“Completely, sir,” Comms Ensign Hayna said, and Sensors Ensign Huxley nodded in affirmation. “I’ve received twenty individual messages of cooperation from ship captains… Transmission for you personally, sir, incoming from the Crimson Muse.”

“Yes?” Lord Kadolan’s flagship – former flagship, according to the radar.

The holocomm flickered and a man’s head and shoulders resolved over it, a man in his middle age and in a captain’s uniform. “Commodore Quinn. I’m Maran Lannes, captain of the Crimson Muse and of Lord Kadolan’s fleet. I’ve been instructed by one of my superiors to place my fleet under your command. There appear to be some dissenters, but on the whole we’re yours to command, Commodore.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “’One of your superiors’? May I ask whom, Captain Lannes?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified. If they wish to disclose it in their own time, they may do so, but it is for their own safety that I cannot tell you. However, I assure you that we are entirely ready and willing to fight at your side. And I think you may be glad of the help, since it doesn’t look like the Revenant is budging.”

“You are correct upon that account,” Quinn said, slightly stiffly. If he could trust him, in one moment, his forces had effectively quintupled.

“What are your orders, Commodore?” Captain Lannes was looking expectantly at him. So was Captain Cheyomar.

He studied the radar for a moment; only a moment, he knew where the ships were. The Revenant, Lord Calamit’s largest ship, two kilometers long and easily four times the size of the Golden Conqueror, was sitting up against the Drive Yards, protected and reinforced by its defences. The closest ‘friendly’ aligned portion of the station was too far away to factor. Thirteen other ships remained in its close vicinity; the Terror and the Glory of Volkov had been hanging back and had taken off towards the Conqueror as soon as he’d come out of hyperspace, and two more ships were following, declaring themselves friendly. Some of the others were in confused pursuit, and his allied ships were taking mild damage just trying to reach his position. Captain Lannes’ fleet, on the other hand, was hidden behind Bador, Kuat’s larger moon. Only five of his ships had refused to follow his lead, and one of them was being heavily punished for it, already on the verge of surrender. The other four were fleeing. He’d keep an eye on them; they might come back later and cause chaos on their own initiative.

The Revenant and her fleet were now outnumbered, but she was still in an almost untouchable position. The particular segment of the space station behind her was one of the most valuable along the entire ring, one reason why it was so heavily guarded – but it held itself hostage.

He turned to Lannes. “Captain, if you would be so kind as to lend me three or four of your ships, our forces will be relatively equal. I am going to take advantage of their confusion to pacify as much of their fleet as possible. Make speed to these coordinates, and then we shall see about neutralizing the Revenant.” He indicated a location behind Calamit’s fleet and a little away from the ring.

“Aye, Commmodore. Austere Shadow, take Hawk’s Fist and Sickle and join up with the Golden Conqueror. Fleet, break cover…”

Lannes turned away from his holoprojector to give orders to his own bridge crew, and Quinn was glad of it; he didn’t need the distraction. When they needed to coordinate directly, he would let him know. “Ensign Huxley, tag the three incoming ships as Formation Beta, and the four ships fleeing from Lannes as Formation Delta.” Lannes had already given him a sign of trust; he’d sent a good mid-sized cruiser and two escort vessels. Big enough to be useful, not big enough to destroy his fleet should they turn on him. “Thunderbolt, advance to reinforce Glory of Volkov. Glory, Terror, Black Curse, Grim Justice, reduce speed by one quarter and engage the Belligerence. All other ships, full thrust, prepare encirclement of Belligerence, Nautilus, and Howling Doom.” The Glory and Terror group had just become visible to the naked eye; it would still be a few moments before their pursuers were in firing range, and anticipation was rising in his heart.

“Shields to bow,” Cheyomar ordered quietly. “Port gunners, make ready. Launch all fighters.”

“Commodore, message from Lord Akuliina,” Hayna reported. “’Watch your back’.”

“Acknowledged,” Quinn said, his heart making an odd happy jump that she would be thinking of him now. She had her own concerns. But she, too, found Lannes’ defection odd, no doubt.

The enemy ships pursuing his own had pounced on the Black Curse, the last-lying ship in the irregular formation; he’d ordered them all to attack the largest ship. Howling Doom was the faster of the pursuers, almost in range of his fleet; would she realize her mistake, or no?

Nautilus did, suddenly reducing speed in the hopes that more of Calamit’s ships would come to reinforce her. They would deal with her later. Belligerence was completely focused on the Black Curse, and Howling Doom hesitated, then committed to firing on the Black Curse as well. The smaller ship’s shields were about to fail, but so was the Belligerence’s, pounded by the Glory of Volkov’s heavy guns.

Now the enemy ships realized their position, as the Thunderbolt suddenly fired from above onto the Belligerence, and the fleet began to umbrella into their pincer. Formation Beta was about halfway to their position; they’d be too late to help here, but he needed them more for the Revenant anyway. “Shields to bow and port,” Cheyomar ordered.

Coldly, he watched as Belligerence and Howling Doom banded together, Black Curse slipping away from them and into the safety of the fleet. Nautilus was retreating, returning to Calamit’s other ships; some of his fighters were in pursuit until their squadron commanders ordered them back. The Conqueror still hadn’t fired, waiting to line up the ideal shot. “Target gun emplacements and engines first.” If they could remove the ships from combat with a minimum of damage, they could be salvaged later and used for their proper purpose: defending the Empire.

“Aye, sir. Fire!”

He felt the satisfying thud of the turbolasers going off in perfect unison, the only time that was likely to happen in the entire battle. There was just something about large-scale ship-to-ship combat that thrilled him to the core, something that had just begun to awaken at Druckenwell so long ago and not fulfilled until Akuliina had commissioned the Golden Conqueror. But these rapid calculations, the quicksilver tactics of space combat, the high-stakes risks of playing with so much power and so many lives made him feel alive as much as any hand-to-hand shoot-out. And it was slightly cleaner than a hand-to-hand shoot-out.

And the stakes were high here. If he failed to eliminate the ships against him, he himself would probably die, along with all the men and women who served under his command. And if he failed to eliminate the ships against him quickly and effectively, Kuat would be crippled, her fleet production slashed, vulnerable to attack by the Republic and frowned upon by the Dark Council. But most importantly, if he failed to eliminate the enemy, his wife was in danger. He’d already let her down time and again; he couldn’t do so this time.

Nautilus was pulling back with all speed, retreating back to the safety of the ring, and the other ships that might have come to reinforce her were regrouping as well. Calamit’s fleet would still equal his own, once Formation Beta arrived, except Calamit’s remaining ships had more mass tonnage. But Captain Lannes would arrive, and then… well, then they would see if he was honourable. If he was not, this would be a very difficult fight.

She stood at one end of her chosen playground, bathed in the light of both Kuat’s moons, waiting. There was little light besides the moons, no power left in the dead part of the city; most of the fires had burned out long ago. Her lightsabers hung loosely in her hands, unlit. The wind was cool, stirring her white hair, though this part of the planet was experiencing summer and the puesur crickets were cheeping softly in the distance, out on the plain to the north. The city itself was still, silent; even the looters were lying low tonight. They probably felt the aura she was giving off, her anticipation heavy in the air like thunder, the premonition that tonight in this place something was going to Go Down. This was where her father had died. With enough power and skill, this would be where his murderer died.

Overhead, the Drive Yards shone brighter than ever against the stars, and the blackness beyond was criss-crossed by tiny flickers of light. Massive turbolaser blasts and powerful engine trails became hardly more than an interesting light display from this distance. They weren’t quite overhead at this time, and yet their deadliness, though delayed, could not be discounted.

For once, she didn’t feel tired. She could feel the tiny presence inside her, and that life gave her energy. Not that she was fighting to protect it, for its future – that was too romantic for her. But supposedly there was a glow to motherhood, an energy that no one else had; she had that now. The city was silent, and yet her heart was already thrumming in her ears, her anticipation pulling a tight, eager smile from her lips.

A figure appeared on the other side of the rooftop from a roof access stair, then a speeder pulled in and discharged another, standing well away from each other. She had felt them approach, could feel without even trying that they were the ones she sought.

“Gentlemen,” she said, allowing her smile to broaden. “I’m glad you could find time in your no-doubt busy schedules of killing each other, for me to kill you both.”

“As if this isn’t what you wanted all along,” Evryn said mockingly.

She dropped the taunting from her own voice. “Actually, it wasn’t. I was busy, and perfectly happy to let you squabble amongst yourselves without involving myself, though this dissent makes us all look weak to the Republic. Though I would have been less than thrilled if _you_ had won, Evryn. But you both had to drag me into this.”

“You can’t lie to us, child,” Calamit said. “Once you knew what was happening here, you were bound to interfere, to make your own claim to this power. Once you defeated your former lover, you would have challenged me yourself.”

“For once, I agree with my esteemed fossilic predecessor,” Evryn said. “Do you really think you can win? Against me? You loved me, once.”

She smiled viciously. “You do realize that means I only hate you more now. And my power has grown apace. I’m expecting a challenge, Evryn. Don’t disappoint me again.”

He bowed with a mocking smile of his own. “Never again, my lady. And don’t you underestimate me, either. I even tried to spare you. I knew this would happen.”

She snorted and ignited her lightsabers; they followed suit. Her pulse was pounding within her, her rage against both of them burning to its height. “I don’t expect to convince you of the truth, and ultimately I don’t care, because you cannot stand against me!” And she charged, bounding lightly along the surface of the roof, raising her lightsabers as she leapt on Evryn, the closest, with a shrill warcry.

He sprang to meet her, his own scarlet saber hissing as it ground against hers; after an instant of pressure, she was away again, reclaiming distance, whirling to meet Calamit. They were both focused on killing her first, and each other afterwards, and she was glad of it. She could push herself to the limit against both of them, without tenuous, temporary unspoken alliances and instantaneous betrayals. She needed none of that: as subtle as a turbolaser cannon, she was, and here to do what she did best, dominate and destroy.

Calamit flung out his arms against her, and she felt immense pressure against her body on all sides, as if she’d been caught in a vacuum sphere with the vacuum reversed. The floor crumbled away beneath her, meter-thick duracrete disintegrating under the pressure of the Force, revealing a ten-story fall. As her body floated in the air, frozen in place, she could feel an invisible, poisonous power seeping into her, trickling into her eyes, her lungs, her brain, her heart. She gave a furious shriek, scorching it away from her, and flipped to undestroyed roof, flinging one lightsaber in looping arcs at Evryn, making him shy away. Calamit was still sending tendrils of energy against her; she could almost feel them physically beat against her. It made her want to cut them apart, but what good would that do?

It was time to move again. Her feet beat out a staccato rhythm on the rooftop in her deadly dance, her heartbeat running faster still. Feinting with Evryn around ventilation housings, flipping over Calamit’s invisible stabs, she built speed, every ounce of energy focused on penetrating their defenses.

“And to think I tried to make your end quick, tried to spare you,” Evryn said, breathless, and lunged and stabbed at her, trying to draw her into a riposte-counter-riposte.

She snorted shortly, refusing to be baited. “You said so before. Why bring up such a useless statement?” He was matching her aggression, proving himself better at swordplay than she remembered. His body language suggested that he thought killing her ought to be simple enough, though he kept his guard up, and she took fierce pleasure in proving him wrong every moment.

“You really are ungrateful. Although I can’t claim all the credit. My wife wanted to see you in chains.”

“So you managed to dupe some poor girl into sticking with you.” Really, this conversation was a waste of breath. She really shouldn’t even answer him, just let him babble himself to death.

He grinned with conceit. “You don’t even know. How stupid you are. I’d tell you to thank her for your life, but I’m about to take it from you.”

“Then shut up and get on with it!” She made a powerful attack, pushing him back bodily, though she couldn’t break through his guard. He recovered quickly and counterattacked, and now he was pushing her away. Calamit hung back, content to let the younger ones wear themselves out in physical combat; she couldn’t let him sit back and relax, nor let him to his own devices and focus solely on Evryn. Now that Evryn thought he was gaining the upper hand, she slipped away, charging Calamit, tearing her way through his Force aura.

He caught her throat, tried to steal the air from her lungs; she couldn’t Force-scream back, but she broke it with a violent flexing of her upper body, spinning to counter Evryn. She didn’t want to throw one her sabers at Calamit, to risk him stealing it from her and depriving her, or even using it himself to try to kill her. But she would hound him, and Evryn would follow her, and their strange savage threesome would continue.

Her heart was going to tear itself out of her chest in the ferocious ecstasy of battle. If she wasn’t so consumed by wrathful concentration, she might have laughed for sheer joy.

Quinn staggered, the Golden Conqueror taking a full broadside from Sun’s Damnation. The Revenant had pulled her remaining ships about herself, an extra set of armour and shields that fought back. Captain Lannes and his fleet were attacking from the rear of the formation, while Quinn’s fleet attacked from the front. They needed a little more time to coax the enemy ships into a favourable formation…

In the meantime, they were soaking up heavy fire, and he had to cling to his console to remain upright. Fighters were skittering by outside, slightly too close for comfort: if any of them were sent into a death spiral in the direction of the bridge, he didn’t like the bridge crew’s chances of survival.

The Conqueror shuddered again, but not from turbolaser fire. “What was that?”

“It seems the station has aimed a tractor beam at us, sir!” Ensign Huxley cried in great alarm. “Or several!” The station was getting larger already, pulling the Conqueror out of position.

“Make up your mind, Ensign, and indicate them on the radar. Captain, send some fighters to deal with it.” They’d take heavy losses. It couldn’t be helped.

“Third and Fourth Squadrons, break off and attack the tractor beam emplacements on the ring,” Cheyomar ordered. Fourth Squadron was a bomber squadron; once they found the emplacements, they’d make short work of them. “Engines to reverse, maximum thrust.”

The Conqueror shook again from a broadside, and now warning klaxons were going off. The hull had been breached. Something popped behind Quinn, and he glanced back to see one of the fire control consoles had exploded. The operator was lying on the floor, clutching his face. “Damage report! Get that man down to medical.”

“Multiple hull breaches on Deck 5 and 6, sir!” replied the damage analyst ensign. “We’ve lost five turbolaser cannons and two shield projectors. Bulkheads have sealed.”

And they couldn’t roll the ship until those tractor beams had been taken out. “Third and Fourth Squadron status?”

“Down to half strength, sir, but they’ve destroyed several targets,” Huxley reported.

“Tell them to make it quicker. Hawk’s Fist, assume defensive position along our starboard. Captain, as soon as we have freedom to move, roll the ship.”

“Aye, sir.” The ships shook again, and the damaged areas on the readouts began to spread. Quinn kept a close eye on it, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it yet. It wasn’t even as important as the rest of the battle.

He glanced at the radar again. “Formation Sigma, attack on my mark. …Mark.”

“Aye, sir.” The Tyrant’s Pride and the three Volkov ships were formed in an arrowhead, waiting in the wings, and now moved at full speed to force themselves into the gap left by Quinn applying pressure at the front and Lannes at the back.

“Tractor beams gone,” Huxley reported, as the Conqueror suddenly seemed to relax and the station began to recede slightly.

“Roll the ship,” Cheyomar ordered. The planet began to rotate outside the viewport, beginning with the enemy ships on the right and ending with them on the left, upside down. “Reduce engines and maintain position. Third and Fourth Squadrons, return to dogfighting.”

“When Sun’s Damnation is out of action, send Thunderbolt and Shadow Walker to begin sweeping up the station’s defenses in their wake,” Quinn ordered. “Tell Captain Lannes to devote someone to doing that as well.”

“Tyrant’s Pride is reporting interference from Infinitum,” Huxley reported. One of Calamit’s ships had immediately curved in from defending against Quinn’s fleet to block Formation Sigma’s attack.

Quinn glared at the radar. Sun’s Damnation and Nautilus were blocking him and Austere Shadow from assisting. “Pride, engage the Infinitum. Take us closer to Sun’s Damnation.”

“Sir?”

“Do it,” Quinn said. The Conqueror would get chewed up, but Sun’s Damnation would get chewed up more.

This was stupid. Perfectly good ships, perfectly good crews were getting blown to pieces. He refused to sacrifice any of his own ships to this madness. Part of his problem was the fact that he had many small or medium sized vessels and too few capital-class vessels with the accompanying armaments. “Grim Justice, Black Curse, Sickle, move past Nautilus, strike her from behind. Take out her engines.”

“That will place them in range of the Revenant,” Cheyomar said.

“I know. Increase the pressure.”

“Aye, sir.”

The Conqueror’s shields were flickering, and stray shots were scorching armour. “Sun’s Damnation’s engines have failed!” Huxley reported. “Her shields are down!”

“Austere Shadow, finish off Sun’s Damnation,” Quinn said. “Cheyomar, bring us towards the Revenant’s bow.” Like a mother thranta, the Conqueror surged forward, past the burning Sun’s Damnation, behind the Nautilus, and up to shadow the smaller ships. And finally, into range of Calamit’s flagship.

Too late to help Black Curse; though her shields had regained strength since her escape from Calamit’s fleet, her hull had already taken damage. Fires were rippling across her hull now, and every strike from the Revenant wounded her more deeply. “If Black Curse’s captain has not already given the order to abandon ship, now would be the time to do so.”

“Sir, Tyrant’s Pride is down an engine, but Infinitum is withdrawing.” Captain Lannes was also slowly making his way through Calamit’s fleet towards the Revenant, though not as cleanly as Quinn had. Ahead, the Black Curse began spitting out escape pods in all directions, most of them aimed at the planet below. The Revenant forbore to shoot at them.

“Pride, do what you can. Volkov ships, forward – give the Revenant something to think about. We’ll be there shortly.”

“Sun’s Damnation reports surrender,” Hayna called.

“Good. Guns, finish off the Nautilus’s engines quickly. Shadow, join the Conqueror in assaulting the Revenant’s bow. Hold the bombers in reserve.”

“Bow shields failing, sir.”

“Carry on,” Quinn said, feeling sweat trickle down his spine.

“Aye, sir.”

“Nautilus reports surrender,” Hayna said.

“Focus on the Revenant. Take down her shields. Thunderbolt, when the shields fail, hit her with everything you have.”

Captain Lannes re-appeared on holocomm. “Commodore, we’re ready to assist.”

“Target the Revenant’s engines. If you have any hotshots looking to prove themselves, you might send them hunting for the bridge.”

“The captain of the Last Star fits that description. They’ll switch to their auxiliary bridge, of course.”

“Of course.” But every little bit helped.

Tyrant’s Pride was closing the gap to the Revenant, bit by bit, turning their side with the dead engine towards the enemy to protect their remaining engine. Fighters buzzed around them all, attacking each other, taking potshots at the larger ships. It was almost time to send in the bombers.

And then the Revenant began to fire in earnest. A ship of that size, with the largest reactor currently in production, could pour out a lot of firepower. The Hawk’s Fist’s shields crumpled immediately, and the Sickle was about to follow suit. “Sickle, retreat. Hawk’s Fist, abandon ship if you deem it necessary; otherwise, also retreat. Volkov ships, let Pride cover you. Austere Shadow, cover the Sickle.” The Conqueror shuddered violently, shields flickering and failing, and he had to grab his console again. Another bridge console exploded, sending a spray of sparks flying across the aisle. And the Revenant’s shields were only just beginning to show wear. Shadow’s shields were in trouble, Pride’s shields were gone. And across ten kilometers of space, Captain Lannes’s ships were faring about as well.

But the Golden Conqueror was no wilting lorchad blossom, and though her guns were diminished, she was not muted, returning fire as relentlessly as she was able. The deck trembled with the discharge of the cannons. And all her surviving ships were with her, too many targets for the Revenant to focus fire efficiently. If Quinn were the captain of the Revenant, he would be considering running now, rather than surrender, though Calamit had probably ordered him not to. If it was for Akuliina’s sake, he wouldn’t run or surrender either, but he suspected the captain of the Revenant didn’t have his reasons. Still, the Revenant was running out of options, and that was good for Quinn. Even if they were loyal Imperials, even if it was a complete waste to destroy such a powerful and useful ship, he couldn’t help the feeling of satisfaction at having outfought a difficult opponent.

If he survived. The Conqueror was on fire in at least six different places and depressurized in a dozen more, and while the bridge shields were still intact for now, they wouldn’t last long against the Revenant’s sustained fire. It was a race now to see which side could outshoot the other.

And the Revenant’s shields were weakening, melting. “Thunderbolt, prepare to fire. Bomber squadron, begin your attack run now. Thunderbolt, fire!”

The Thunderbolt’s artillery lanced across the void, creating a rippling fireball in the gradually widening hole in the shields; the bombers followed a few moments later, their armament tearing into the cruiser’s armour. Suddenly, there were a lot fewer turbolasers pointed in their direction. “Well done. Keep firing! We have them!”

Huxley’s head suddenly snapped up. “Sir! The Infinitum is turning its guns towards the planet!”

 _What!? Now?_ “Thunderbolt, fire on the Infinitum! Pride, can you block the shot?” There was only one target Infinitum could be aiming at. Pride was too far away, and still limping on one engine, but he had to ask, she was closest. And it wasn’t enough.

“Pride is too far away to get there in time,” Huxley confirmed. The Thunderbolt fired, missiles streaking towards her target, but the Infinitum had already fired its batteries towards the night-dim world below.

She was driving Calamit towards the edge of the rooftop when he began to laugh. “Ha! This is it. This is where it ends for you!”

“He’s lost it,” she called to Evryn, who had just recovered and was rushing back to the fight. “He’s finally, completely lost it-”

Both she and Evryn stopped and looked up. Scarlet beams were incoming from heaven, too fast to dodge, too massive to block. “Calamit! You colossal-” Whatever she had been going to say was drowned in the explosion of the first strike, and then the world was lit up with scarlet light.


	8. Firestorm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got some more soundtracks to enjoy with this chapter: Charging into battle with tanks is [Red Sun](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jynTNYSKNuk); charging into battle with soldiers is [Heartbeat by Nathalie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMuPK2GWMuc) (one of Akuliina's theme songs, really); charging into battle against the final boss is [It Has to Be This Way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYAPgPH9hsI).
> 
> This chapter has another disturbing violence/gore moment.

Chapter 8: Firestorm

When she woke, she was lying on a pile of rubble and the sun was rising over the horizon. She’d run this way and that as the orbital bombardment had struck the area around the factory, zig-zagging away from the conflict zone in a futile effort to find a spot that wouldn’t mean instant death, until a blastwave behind her had picked her up and thrown her away. Her entire body was tender and aching, but she couldn’t feel any broken bones, even though there was a big chunk of duracrete lying across her legs. The Force had shielded her well, perhaps the only reason she was still alive without a helmet or heavy armour. That, and pure luck – otherwise known as the Force’s will – that she hadn’t been obliterated like her father.

That idiot. She’d specifically told them not to initiate an orbital bombardment for this very reason. She closed her eyes for a moment, reaching out in the Force for her enemies. She felt nothing. Now she had to chase them down again in order to kill them. If they were dead, she wouldn’t find much. Somehow she didn’t think Calamit would be dead, if the bombardment had been his idea. That was fine; his death would be utterly gruesome. With a snarl, she kicked the chunk of duracrete off her and hauled herself to her feet. She was still alive. That was all she needed to win – life, the Force, and her lightsabers. And even the lightsabers were optional.

“My lord!” Agent Elshinix was approaching at a run from down the street. “My lord, you unhurt?”

“I’m fine, Agent,” she said, clipping her lightsabers to her belt and making her way down carefully from the pile of rubble. She wondered why the Chiss had returned to her. “Glad to see you are, too. What’s the situation?”

“Lord Calamit made his way by speeder north, out of the city. I have not found any trace of Lord Kadolan yet. Commodore Quinn assured me the space battle has been resolved, and then charged me with locating you. He waits for news even now.”

Akuliina checked her pocket for her commlink. It appeared to be intact. She tapped it, then opened a channel. “Akuliina to Quinn.”

“My lady!” His voice was full of unabashed relief. “You’re alive! We’ve been scanning as we mop up, but found no trace of your survival…”

“Searching for a single life form near a city from orbit will do that,” she said lightly. “So the space battle has been won, eh?”

“The Revenant was destroyed, all other resistance has surrendered or been forced to withdraw, and only one section of the station was damaged. Tyrant’s Pride and Shadowwalker have taken serious damage; the Golden Conqueror and Thunderbolt less so. The Volkov ships are nigh-unscathed, and we only lost half our complement of fighters. Our… allies are in reasonably good shape as well.”

“Better than I expected. I’ve felt no sign of Evryn, and I’m told Calamit escaped. I’m going after him.”

“Be careful, my lady. Scans show considerable fortifications in the mountains around the city.”

“Oh, I’m certain it’s yet another trap,” she said airily. “But I don’t intend to let him get away.”

“You won’t, my lady. I’ll be standing by.”

“Do that,” she said, and shut off the comm. “Agent, do we have transportation?”

“Not yet, but your apprentice is coming with the speeders. Her ETA is eight and a half minutes.”

She sighed. “I suppose eight and a half minutes won’t make or break his inevitable ambush. Let’s head north, she can join us on the way.”

North of the city was quiet and bare, a weapons testing ground where only grass grew and puesur crickets and womp rats lived. A lone road led north through the wilderness, heading up into the mountains where eventually the valley broadened again into a rolling plateau. She stopped where the valley broadened out again, Jaesa and Elshinix parking beside her, and looked out through macrobinoculars.

The fortress at the far side of the plain was heavily fortified, bristling with emplacements, crowned with an anti-bombardment shield that meant Quinn would not be able to soften them up for her. Tanks and heavy artillery were set up around the fortress, more pouring out even as she watched, and they were all pointed at her. Dozens of heavy cannons of all different types; it was quite intimidating, if she was in the mood to be intimidated.

She passed the macrobinoculars to Jaesa. She could mostly see the massing army with her naked eyes, now that she knew how to look. Agent Elshinix had her own pair. “This might be it, Jaesa.”

“It’s sure a lot of firepower,” Jaesa replied. “But you know what that just means.”

“More targets,” Akuliina agreed, smirking to herself. “Do you think we’ll survive long enough to kill Calamit?”

Jaesa grinned at her. “You can overcome anything, Master. If _I_ go down here today, it’ll be an honour to have served you so long. It’s gonna be a hard fight, though.”

“It is,” Akuliina said. “I wouldn’t mind having a bit more of an edge.” Elshinix cast a look askance at them both; she might have rolled her eyes, but since she was Chiss, Akuliina couldn’t actually tell.

“Hell, I’m not dying to these clumsy weapons, so you better not, Master!”

“As if,” Akuliina said, snorting. After all she’d done, how much she’d suffered and fought over this ridiculous conflict, when she was carrying Quinn’s child, to die here seemed completely unreasonable. So she wouldn’t give him a goodbye call. Even though this might be goodbye, despite her best efforts. But Jaesa believed in her.

She and Jaesa suddenly glanced to the sky and nudged their bikes forward a bit; Agent Elshinix followed reflexively. A massive drop-pod slammed into the ground behind them, unfolding into a siege tank. Another one fell, and another one, and there was a sudden swarm of shuttles appearing over the mountains to the south. Some of them had the insignia of the Shadowwalker, her own infantry carrier. That was more like it. Bless Quinn for anticipating her needs.

Her comm went off – twice. She answered it quickly. “I trust this will be of use to you,” Countess Mareet said. A troop transport rolled up to her and her mother emerged, still in her robes, her commlink to her lips and a smug smile on her face very much like Akuliina’s own.

“Why yes, thank you, this is splendid,” Akuliina said. “I assume you coordinated with the Commodore?”

“Countess Mareet has filled me in on the situation entirely,” Quinn’s precise tones came through the commlink. “Please inform me if there’s anything else I can do to assist you.”

“I think this will be sufficient,” she said saucily. “I’ll see you soon.”

One of the tanks rolled up next to them, its top hatch open and a man in a Major’s uniform leaning out of it. “My lord! Major Ostrenko reporting! I am at your command!”

“We’ll head around the east side of the valley and roll up their flank,” she ordered. “Your objective is to open that gate and get me inside; I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Yes, sir!” The Major disappeared back inside his tank, already barking orders.

“Shall we race?” Countess Mareet asked her daughter.

“I’ll win,” Akuliina said.

“Never underestimate a bereaved woman,” Mareet said. “I want my revenge.”

“He took my father and almost took my Commodore,” Akuliina retorted. “I know a fair bit about bereavement at his hands as well.”

Her mother inclined her head. “I look forward to seeing your feelings in combat, then.”

As her mother disappeared back into her transport, Akuliina revved her speeder bike and grinned at Jaesa. “Only try and keep up with me!”

“Easy,” Jaesa retorted. “Let’s go!”

She opened the throttle as far as it would go and streaked across the valley, Jaesa and Elshinix riding in her wake. Lasers from the fort’s defense turrets and shells from enemy artillery crashed around her; one shell hit a Volkov tank which exploded with a 200 meter-tall cloud of fire. She needed to get closer, to get right up in the enemy artillery, destroy their crews to make way for her own forces to blow open the fort. The ground shook beneath her repulsors, red light flashing on all sides, and the constant sound of the explosions was deafening – and exhilarating. She found herself grinning involuntarily as she flitted around the laser blasts, her heart thrumming within her as she leaned low over the handlebars, the wind beating against her face and through her hair.

She was beneath the foot of the first huge gun. They couldn’t fire on her now without striking their own equipment and men. Though Calamit would probably order them to do it anyway – she wasn’t flattering herself when she estimated that killing her was far more important than avoiding friendly fire. She braked to a hard stop, skidding around in a drifting curve to the rear of the gun, leaping off her bike almost before it had finished and springing on its crew, lightsabers blazing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jaesa going for another gun. Agent Elshinix had dropped back to blend in with the other troops.

Were they close enough yet? No, there was still some fighting to do before she could enter the fort. She left the bike and ran on foot ahead. A tank came rumbling towards her, aiming to run her down and crush her, firing on her with its anti-personnel gun. She dodged and blocked, moving to the side, forcing it to either turn and track her and be vulnerable to her own tanks, or go straight and weather whatever attack she had planned. It went straight. She stabbed her lightsaber into the treads, almost losing her grip on it – lightsabers could cut through almost anything, even cortosis if given long enough, but even regular durasteel could withstand it for a short while.

Her senses twinged, and she turned to see another tank aiming directly at her with its main gun. She yanked her lightsaber free, but she wasn’t going to dodge its blast entirely, and if it exploded the tank behind her, she would be caught in it.

A sniper rifle’s crack was hilariously small-sounding under the cannon-fire, but the tank that was aiming at her suddenly exploded from within. Agent Elshinix had detonated the shell while it was still in the tank. An excellent shot. She was running to get clear of the tank she was beside, and moments later a shot from one of her own tanks destroyed it.

She reached the wall of the fortress and took stock of the field. Most of her forces were under the anti-bombardment shield, though she’d lost quite a few tanks to the fort’s emplacements. The enemy still had many tanks and cannons, but her own had a clear shot to the gate.

“Fire! Fire on the gate! Then withdraw!” she cried into her commlink, pointing unnecessarily, and at least three of the tanks responded. It took several volleys before the tunnel into the base transformed into a twisted, flaming ruin – but open and clear to proceed through. She leapt over the flaming rubble, facing a double line of troopers with raised rifles; she cut into them, lightsabers whirling, blaster shots bouncing away from her. She knew they were only there to slow her down, that they were spending their lives uselessly. She didn’t care in this mood, swooping on them like thunder, blood rushing through her like coloured light, exultant in her power and speed. Jaesa and her mother were a breath behind her, and Agent Elshinix was in the middle of two squads of her own troopers, Pierce and Broonmark among them. Even Vette was here, though further back with other specialists.

She stormed into the command centre and slowed to a halt. The two-story chamber was lined with Sith apprentices down each side, fifteen or sixteen at the least, a full two squads of soldiers, and Calamit standing on the second-story level at the back, looking down on them all. The analysts and coordinators at their posts were looking nervous, and some would clearly have fled if only the Sith apprentices were not so close to them.

Agent Elshinix holstered her pistol and unslung her long black sniper rifle. “I’m going to set up further back, my lord. Best of luck.”

“Pierce, take this squad, stay near the entrance and secure our exit.” Akuliina glanced at Jaesa. “I’ll take the right, you take the left?”

“I’m assuming you want Calamit, right?”

“Did you even have to ask?” Akuliina said, and glanced at her mother. _My kill_.

“He’s all yours, darling,” Mareet Volkova said with a slight bow. “I’ll be watching while I tear the rest of your enemies limb from limb.”

Akuliina nodded and charged into the melee.

The Dark Side was surging through her, fearless and tireless and unstoppable, a hot wind blowing around her from the fiery destruction outside. The apprentices before her gnashed their teeth and brandished their lightsabers, dressed identically in black hooded robes. _Undeveloped weaklings_ , she thought, and let out her rage in a roar that sent them all stumbling back. She hacked through them piecemeal and swept on without a backwards look, leaving them for her mother. She leapt to the second story level without taking the stairs and found that Calamit had not waited around for her; she probed and found his dark presence retreating through corridors towards an elevator. Would she be able to catch him before he reached it?

Her legs were getting tired and she was getting frustrated at not being able to vent her rage properly on its intended target – though the explosions had been very satisfying, it was true. But she couldn’t be distracted. She hacked down a door and burst into another database room. Calamit was on the other side of the room, and seemed to have paused. Without another thought she was after him, vaulting analyst desks and crashing through old-fashioned glass display screens – and holoprojections, though they weren’t as satisfying.

A chair caught her in the middle of a jump, flinging her painfully across another computer console. He was throwing things at her! Snarling, she cut apart another chair and a fire extinguishing canister with her lightsaber before she could slide to her feet and keep coming, alert for more flying objects and either dodging them or slicing them apart. Her movements were less acrobatic now; she bulled straight through the computers – slower, but making her less of a target.

He was trying to slip away between the spaces between computers, but turned, reaching out his hand to stall her progress. “You foolish child, what do you think you will accomplish by this?”

“Killing you,” she snarled, fire in her belly scorching through her veins, fighting through air that was suddenly thick as mud. “You killed my father. You tried to steal my best officer. You’ve proven yourself more of a threat than you’re worth. I’ll rule Kuat over your smouldering corpse and the Empire will know her greatness more than ever!”

“I am the only one who can rule Kuat. Only I have the experience, the knowledge, to make the most of her capabilities for the glory of the Empire. You’ll destroy all that you fight for if you continue this!”

“Bite me,” she hissed, lunging forward. There was no backing down without death for either of them now. “You’d wreck the Empire to preserve your own little piece of it!”

“I’d almost rather Kadolan ruled than you,” Calamit grumbled, and she shrieked at him in outrage, but he didn’t flinch at the surge of power. The elevator had opened to him, and though she reached it a moment after he did, slashed through the closing doors, it whisked him away.

She ran for the stairs. He’d be on the roof now. She hadn’t seen any shuttles up there, but he could have moved one there while she was inside. He couldn’t get away again.

He was waiting for her there, with no shuttle, only stacks of crates to hide behind. So he thought he could beat her here, then. She smiled. He had nowhere left to run. And though violent emotions were washing through her, she was still relatively clear-minded. She wouldn’t be caught out like she had been with Trathinus.

“You’ve no allies left up here,” he called to her. “You are alone and outmatched. You’ve lost.”

She laughed wildly. “You’ve nowhere left to run. You’re doomed.”

“Believe what you like, it changes nothing.” She saw the turrets angling to fire on the roof and figured the time for words was finished. Lips stretched in a feral smile, she bounded forward, feeling the Force in every step, looking for traps.

No pressure traps. But Calamit reached out, lifted one of the speeder-sized crates effortlessly, and hurled it at her. She ducked backwards, skidding forwards on her knees, her skull almost cracking on the roof, watching the crate miss her face by centimetres, then leapt up again. There was another one behind it, of course, and she threw herself against it and bounced off boots first, clambering over it as it tumbled side-over-side. And another one, with a little more of a pause to catch her out in. Good, he wasn’t setting a rhythm. He was keeping it challenging. All she had to do was close with him, and all he had to do was keep her away long enough that the turrets could fire on her.

Except… they weren’t firing. She glanced out of the corner of her eye long enough to catch a glimpse of a yellow double-bladed lightsaber and a violet lightsaber and laughed to herself. Jaesa and her mother had clearly finished up downstairs and had decided to deal with everything else that wasn’t Calamit. _Good apprentice. Initiative will be rewarded_.

A rain of smaller crates pelted her; she hopped laterally and blasted them back, scattering them across the deck. He slammed a big crate before her like a wall, and with a bound she grabbed the edge, pulling herself up and over, leaping on him as fire flooded her veins in triumph. He tried to freeze her in the air as he’d done before, but though she felt resistance, she was still searing through it, landing before him by sheer willpower. She pressed him closely now, glaring into his near-white grey eyes, backing him towards the edge. His lip was curled in a contemptuous, arrogant snarl, no fear in him even as she swung directly at his body. He tried to turn, to sidestep and change their positions, but she countered that, boxing him in with quick sliding steps of her own. As he reached out to choke her, she ducked under his defense and slashed, and severed his hand at the wrist. He howled and tried to Force-push her away with the other hand, but she weathered that and drove further, cutting off his other arm at the shoulder. Between the pain and the lack of mnemonic gestures, he was completely helpless. Much the way Quinn had been in his grasp. The way her father had been under bombardment.

“And now,” she ground out, “I keep my promises.” She shut off her lightsabers and reached out, locking an unbreakable grip on his throat. With her other hand, she formed a fist, and began to pull, slowly, inexorably, mercilessly.

Calamit fought her, his strength in the Force diminished but not snuffed out. She felt a band squeezing her own throat, a pressure in her brain, but his power was draining out of him like the blood from his wrist and shoulder – and soon he was distracted by other things. Like the slow, hideous sucking sound as the flesh of his face began to pull apart.

He was helpless, completely helpless, and she thrilled in vengeful glee as she felt his life flee his body in torment, the withered old flesh-sack falling limp in her grip. She let it collapse to the ground and kicked the corpse from the wall, watching it fall, down, down, down, bouncing and sliding its way to the parade ground far below. A bloody trail followed it.

Turning, she saw Jaesa, the Countess, and Agent Elshinix standing there. “Fort is secure, we killed pretty much everyone else,” Jaesa said. “That was fun, let’s do it again.”

“I’ll need a new reason to take revenge on someone, then,” Akuliina said.

“It seems that Kuat is now yours,” Mareet Volkova said. “Well done, darling. It was a thrill to see you destroy that old fossil. You did finish off Evryn first, did you not?”

Akuliina paused. “I do not know what became of him. It’s possible he died in the bombardment. I won’t let my guard down yet.”

“Congratulations, master,” Jaesa said, grinning. “Let’s go party!”

“You can go party,” Akuliina said, amused by her priorities. “I’m going to have lunch.” She raised her commlink to her mouth. “Commodore, come in.”

“My lady, it’s good to hear from you. All’s well up here.”

“Calamit is dead. Send me a shuttle?”

“Right away, my lady.”

She stepped onto the bridge of the Conqueror, observing the post-battle bustle with interest. While by this point most of the important issues had been taken care of, it wasn’t quite business as usual yet. At least two consoles were covered in extinguishing foam and hadn’t been repaired or even cleaned off. The main damage readout showed several hits along the flanks, serious but nothing catastrophic. Tyrant’s Pride would take much longer to rebuild in comparison.

Quinn seemed to sense her and turned to greet her with a small bow. “Welcome home, my lady.”

“Thank you, Quinn. Hello, Captain. Have you made contact with the docks yet?”

“Yes, my lady. Your- The Volkov facilities are being made ready for us even now.”

“Good.” She didn’t bat an eye at Quinn avoiding mention of her parents, her father. If he wanted to be sensitive about it, that was his affair.

“With Calamit’s confirmed death, the Drive Yards as a whole have declared their neutrality. They have no cause to be hostile now.”

“Of course.” And they would be cautious around her, for now. “And Captain Lannes, what is his stance now?”

“He says he was ordered to assist me when you commandeered the ships in the system, and that has not changed as far as I know. Would you like to speak with him?”

“Yes.” She moved forward and glanced expectantly at Hayna.

Captain Lannes appeared after a few moments and greeted her with a lower bow than Quinn had. “My lord, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise, Captain. I am given to understand you were ordered to assist me; who gave that order, and why?”

“I am not at liberty to say who gave the order, and I am not in the habit of speculating about my superiors, my lord.”

She gave him an arch glance. “A sensible attitude, but who now is your superior?”

He hesitated briefly. “They are, my lord. I am sure they will reveal themselves and their reasons to you in their own time.”

“Very well,” she said. “As for you, I will consider your integrity when I reform Kuat’s defences.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

She shut off the call. “Though I imagine you will have to work with him some before you can properly trust him, after this whole kaggath fiasco,” she said to Quinn. “This is one reason why they’re such a nuisance…”

“Agreed,” he said. She could tell he wanted to say more, but she’d heard his strong opinions on the matter in private before, and that one word spoke the volumes he’d already said.

“And now… Kuat.”

“The planet is yours now, is it not?”

“Certainly. A little sooner than I had expected, yet not unpleasant to acknowledge. Hayna, be a dear and contact the palace in Kuat City? I don’t know who will be there, but the court must know definitively who their new master is.”

As Hayna saluted and began her task, Quinn stepped nearer to Akuliina and spoke with a lowered voice. “Lord Kadolan is not confirmed dead, though, correct?”

“If he still lives, he’s welcome to form his own government _after_ he’s defeated me. If he still lives and chooses to carry on his romantic rebel-in-the-wilderness routine, I’ll hunt him down and purge him. His lack of a resounding victory here will cost him, anyway. I’m not sure they’ll want him in charge after his ships left him and he was taken out by orbital bombardment.”

The holocomm flicked on, and she was met by an austere-looking droid. “Greetings, sire.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And you are…?”

“I am the chief administrative assistant to the Lord of Kuat, sire.”

“So my rule is accepted?”

“By all technicalities, yes, sire. If you wish a formal gathering of the court, I can schedule one at once.”

“Yes. I will meet with them… tomorrow, at the palace, at 1200 local time.” Mid-afternoon, in Kuat’s slightly-shorter-than-galactic-standard day. She’d have scheduled it for earlier, but she suspected that once she fell asleep, she was going to keep sleeping for some time, though she didn’t feel tired yet.

“I will issue the commands at once, sire. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes. I want a full inventory of the damage sustained in this entire conflict, especially over the last standard day. I want to see what’s been done to repair the damage up to this point, and who will be available to take care of the rest. I want to know which shipyards are currently still viable production points, and a complete readout of the economic situation.” She wouldn’t read it until tomorrow morning Kuat City time, but the order needed to be given now. “Kuat needs stability, and to recover from this situation as rapidly as may be.”

“Yes, sire. I will compile the information and transmit it as soon as it is ready.”

“Good. That is all.” She turned to Quinn as the holocomm shut off. “I would also like to have a complete summary of the available military forces in the system, sorted by combat-readiness and house allegiance.”

“Understood, my lady.”

She nodded approvingly at him with a slight smile. “I am retiring to my chambers. Carry on.” And he had better delegate that task and follow her within the hour.

He waited an appropriate amount of time after she’d left before he retired from his station on the bridge, leaving Cheyomar in command of the situation in space. Not that anything should happen. Kadolan’s former fleet was keeping the peace, and Calamit’s was gone. He was on call if the situation did get out of hand, but he’d earned a bit of a rest, though not as much as Akuliina. No doubt she had injuries she was overriding, although what she really needed most was sleep – spending part of the night unconscious in a pile of rubble didn’t count.

The door to her room – their room – slid open and she was there, catching his hands and dragging him inside, locking the door before flinging her arms around his neck to pull him down for passionate kisses. He trapped her in his embrace, enjoying the moment of relaxation. “Someone’s in a good mood tonight.”

“It was hardly midday where I left,” she commented between more kisses. “Should I not? I defeated the man who tried to take you from me. Murdered him horribly. It was very satisfying.”

“You’re not injured?” he asked, side-stepping the fact that killing people horribly made her so very happy, focusing on the fact that she was alive and didn’t have to kill anyone horribly for a while now.

“Not that I know of. The medical droid looked me over already. No, I have something better to discuss.” She ended the sentence with a bite at his lip. “I’d like to reward you somehow.”

He blinked at her, confused. “I- what do you mean? I only did my duty.”

“You endured a great deal on my behalf, brought me through some very difficult situations, and accomplished a sound victory with a limited amount of resources and minimal collateral damage to the Empire. I’d say that’s deserving of a reward. Not a public one, it would be improper. But an improper reward… you more than deserve it.” She smiled confidently at him, and he found himself captured in her eyes.

“You have my interest,” he said. “Shouldn’t we rest first?” Though, even though she seemed tired, she still seemed to have energy – enough energy for proposed activities, certainly. And he’d exerted himself far less physically than she had, hardly any energy in comparison to when running about after her.

“You can if you wish,” she said. “But I thought I’d make you aware of the offer now.”

“What is the offer, then?”

She hesitated, and his interest was really piqued. “How would you like to tie me up again and do whatever you want to me?”

“But you hate that. I don’t want to do something you hate.”

“It’s not that I _hate_ it,” she interrupted him. “I hate being _helpless_. But I trust you, you know. And I know you like being in control sometimes. And it’s been a while since we’ve done it.”

While that was true, and he appreciated how much she did trust him, his brain was catching up, and he had some questions still. Hopefully she would allow him to ask. “Should this really be a reward for doing my duty?” he asked. “That seems a bit unethical.”

“Do you fear that if you underperform in battle, I will stop spontaneously initiating adventurous or experimental encounters? Quinn, do you even know me and my insatiable desire for you?”

“While correlating sex and job performance is also a concern…” She huffed and turned away, radiating angry hurt. “I- Forgive me, Akuliina. But I need no reward. I shouldn’t be rewarded for successfully damaging the Empire, even a fraction, and I certainly shouldn’t be rewarded by or through your preference for me.”

She turned back to him, sighing. Surely she’d predicted he’d react this way. “But you’ve done so well, and I wish to show my appreciation somehow.”

“Should you even love me?” he asked, taking her hands in his, so small compared to his, yet so strong. “Is love not a weakness? Did not that pawn of our former master say it was born of the light?” Draahg had tried to taunt her about him, he’d learned, shortly before she’d disemboweled him.

She snorted. “Love is neither light nor dark. If it were light, why would the Jedi fear it so? And if it were dark, why would it inspire feelings of… leniency… and… compassion, towards the beloved?”

“Surely the Jedi fearing something isn’t proof of anything.”

Her eyes flashed. “All right, then, would I murder two hundred people just to get you back?”

That had happened long enough in the past he could accept the matter-of-factness of her statement. He leaned forward and breathed into her ear. “You’d do it because you’re a possessive bitch.”

She sighed in pleasure as if he’d just paid her an elaborate compliment. “Oh, Malavai, I _am_ a possessive bitch. I _adore_ when you call me that. Now make up your mind.”

“Well,” he said, kissing her soundly, “I’m not _that_ tired. I’m up for it if you are.”

Fifteen minutes later, she was suspended from the ceiling over the bed, strong supple rope holding her spread-eagled as if free-falling. She shivered as he kissed a line from collarbone to ear, stroking the small of her back in that one spot that drove her crazy, watching her bite her lip impatiently. Oh, she’d have to wait for it. This was what she’d asked for.

He was thoroughly distracted by the patterns of faded scars across her skin when suddenly she tensed, her gaze flicking towards the door urgently. “Get me down!”

“Wh-”

A scarlet lightsaber stabbed through the centre of the door before he could complete his question, even as he moved to unhook her from the ceiling. Not something to be ignored, and not Jaesa on a tantrum, then. She was wriggling in her bonds, on the verge of actual panic, before he managed to unhook one leg. This was too slow. He grabbed her lightsaber from the side table and cut through the other leg ropes before the intruder managed to hack through the door.

He felt an invisible blow to the chest and was sent flying to the other side of the room; before he could get up, he felt a crushing pain around his genitals. Now that was just low.

Evryn Kadolan stalked into the room, taking in the sight of the two of them as he sauntered up the ramp to the balcony bedroom. He looked a bit battered, his armour burned down one side, his face covered in dirt and soot. “I wondered if you were bedding him. Even when you were reaching for power you never could keep your priorities straight. And to choose a Force-less weakling like him? And let him do this to you? How weak-minded you are, indeed.”

“He’s better in bed than you,” she hissed, trying to pull the hooks free from the ceiling. “He’s better than you in every way. How did you get in?” He needed to get up, get her free, but as he moved, the awful pain intensified and forced him back down.

Kadolan scoffed. “Your security is a joke. I came back with your own troop shuttles. Your beast is unconscious in his closet. Better than me in every way? He’s weak, clueless, a snail with no shell. And I’m bigger than him.”

“I’m not even going to tell you how stupid you sound,” Akuliina growled, and strained with the fingers of her left hand towards Quinn. She yanked the lightsaber away from him, catching it and slashing through what remained of her bonds, leaning away reflexively from Kadolan’s horizontal strike, then battering his attacks back. She jumped down from the bed, gaining better footing, moving on the attack.

He crept over to his blaster pistol, fighting against the unrelenting pain in his abdomen. Wasn’t the first time he’d felt this, although he felt dirty that it wasn’t Akuliina’s power that was being used on him. He felt dirtier that it was during an emergency combat situation.

The combatants had completely forgotten about him, lost in their hatred, hacking at each other with brutal, unelegant strikes. She seemed completely unaware that she was naked except for the remaining ropes wrapped around arms and legs, defenceless except for her lightsaber alone. But despite the fact that she was fighting as well as ever, Kadolan appeared to be winning, pushing her slowly back into a corner… Quinn chose his moment, rose to one knee, sighted, and fired.

Kadolan’s mouth dropped open in surprise, and he fell backwards, a small neat hole in the back of his head. The crushing pain vanished. Akuliina’s mouth also opened in surprise, and she looked from Kadolan to Quinn and back with wide, astonished eyes.

“Apparently I _am_ better than you in every way,” Quinn sneered at Kadolan’s body as he rose to his feet, blaster still in hand in case the headshot hadn’t been enough. “ _I’m_ alive.”

She gave a shuddering gasp, made a forceful gesture with her hand, and the body went flying out of the room. Then she slammed the blast door shut – that still worked at least – and shut off the lightsaber and turned to him, advancing on him.

Ought he to be nervous? He couldn’t read her wild expression, and her lightsaber, though off, was still in her hand… “I’m sorry? Did you want to kill him?”

“Oh, Malavai Quinn,” she said, breathily, and he swallowed hard. She flung the lightsaber away and dove on him, throwing her arms about his shoulders. “I’m going to make love to you like you’ve never felt in your life.”

He swallowed again. “Right, then.”

“Although I think we’ll save the bondage for another night.”

“Fair enough.”


	9. The Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack for the first fight scene is [The Matriarch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs8RUFS18g0) by Unleash the Archers, which is a newer addition when I rewrote this segment a couple weeks ago; the second fight scene is [A Stranger I Remain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-rj8HVW3PQ). Thanks for reading!

Chapter 9: The Queen

He stood near the throne, with Akuliina’s other close companions, waiting for the woman of the hour to arrive. Jaesa had nearly arrived late, and was catching her breath over by Pierce. The other members of the Kuati court were scattered throughout the hall, and lit from below in red as they were, he couldn’t help but imagine them all as wicked demons. A ridiculous notion, but secretly he was looking forward to seeing how Akuliina looked.

Vette had been given a holocam and was enjoying it greatly, though she was grumbling softly about the recording conditions. “I’m getting _nothin’_. The lights are about all that show up, you guys are just blobs.”

He leaned over her shoulder. “Have you tried increasing the gamma pick-up?”

She batted his hand away. “I’m workin’ on it! Man, if you ever have kids, you’re going to either be a great dad or a really overbearing one.” His spine stiffened, but she couldn’t know. Could she?

Had anyone else noticed his reaction? No, even the nobles he suspected might be Force-sensitive, even Countess Mareet, hadn’t so much as glanced at him or… read his mind, or whatever they did. No, he was wrong again, Jaesa had noticed, and was smirking. His gaze sharpened with a touch of icy glare, and she giggled quietly.

“This place is gonna need redecorating anyway,” Vette rambled on, quietly, so the courtiers standing nearby wouldn’t overhear her conversational chatter. “If Lina decides to move here, I know she’ll like it to look different.”

“It’s rather dreary, even for military architecture,” Quinn agreed, looking about at all the black… and more black… and more black. Even the floors were black carpet. The lights were all red and dim and it was difficult to see to the end of a hallway. Claustrophobic was the word that came to mind. It was much worse than military architecture; barracks might be depressingly austere, but at least you could see in them. “Why do you suppose he designed it like this?”

Vette shrugged; he could see her, at least, in her white vest. Broonmark showed up decently as well. But he and Jaesa and Pierce blended right in, and many of the nobles did as well. A firefight in here was going to be a nightmare for non-Force-sensitives. “He wanted to be ‘cool’ like an emo teenager, maybe? I bet Lina’s Dark Council friend would love it.” She made a ‘spooky’ face at him. “I mean, this spiky evil throne is super tacky. Or maybe he gets _powerrrrr_ off living in literal darkness like a mynock.”

“I like it,” Jaesa said. “I got to come here a couple days ago. Killed a bunch of his apprentices right here in this room. It was great.”

“Of course you’d like it,” Quinn muttered.

“Don’t make me punch you,” she threatened. “I’m only playing nice because it’s a special occasion.”

“Don’t punch the Commodore,” Vette scolded her. “It’s mean.”

“At least not enough to cause permanent damage,” Pierce said. “Commodore Squishy needs to keep his pretty face, after all.”

“Don’t make me shoot y- put you on report,” Quinn retorted, and Vette giggled. He glanced at the closest courtier, a veiled woman in a hoverchair, but she showed no sign of having overheard their undignified banter. Who was she, anyway, so close to the throne as she was?

 _< Quiet! Sith approaches!>_ Broonmark burbled at them.

The great double doors to the throne room slid open before her, and she stepped forward into the escalating anticipation of the court beyond. Like stepping into the krayt’s den, except that she had already killed the dragon and this was now her den. But killing her predecessor had only partially proven her worthiness as ruler, and her youth certainly won her no respect. Conversation stopped as she entered, and she took a moment to look at them, and allow them to look at her. She kept her face coolly, elegantly neutral, filling herself with every bit of arrogance she had. This was not the time to gloat. Not yet. In a second.

Then she strode forward, the skirt of her grey dress snapping about her ankles in a most unfeminine way. A ripple of bowed heads and bended knees preceded her as she made her way boldly towards the throne. Her husband and companions followed suit, as was right and proper.

She stopped right in the centre of the hall, and turned to look about her again, scanning faces for the ones that mattered. “Thank you all for answering my summons. I’m disappointed in those who took the day off… But enough of you are here that we can begin.” Time to cut off some loose ends.

“Begin what?” said a noble near her; for answer, a squadron of Akuliina’s soldiers marched in and took up ready positions around the room, the doors swung shut, and her lightsabers hissed to life. Everyone rose to their feet in alarm. “My lord!”

“I know who you are and whom you truly serve,” Akuliina said, a wicked grin curving her lips, her pulse beginning to rise. “ _Most of you_ , I am here to greet as my vassals. But some of you will not leave this room, _traitors_.”

“You don’t even know who we are!” cried another noble, drawing his lightsaber but not igniting it. “No one here has betrayed you, lord!”

Akuliina laughed. “You think I’m foolish enough to take you at your word? I have my sources. I know who you are and what you’ve done. So you have two choices: you can attack me now – a futile endeavour, but I’ll grant you the honour of dying in combat. Or you can allow my soldiers to arrest you so you can be executed or exiled ignominiously later. Which will it be?”

For a minute, no one moved. “Oh, come now, don’t disappoint me… Emizoe.”

The lightsabers of her enemies and her vassals hummed to light, illuminating the dark hall better than the floor lighting did. Up on the dais, Jaesa was in a ready stance, prepared to defend her Force-less companions, so she didn’t have to worry about them. Chaos charged at her, and she charged back.

She had five targets, Evryn’s former apprentice and allies, who were foolish enough to think they could snatch power before she’d consolidated her own; not the worst plan, but ultimately doomed to failure, especially since she’d had advance warning and preempted them. And if any of her future vassals decided to side with them, she didn’t mind thinning the field a little bit. If they showed their doubt in her here, all the better for her. She didn’t need them around. Her dominance would be complete and unchallenged.

She was outnumbered but not outmatched, reveling in her own strength and power and she danced among them, unable to restrain her glee. _Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory_. No one could touch her now, and no one would dare after this.

One by one they fell, all those who sought to challenge her, Emizoe Deespen and his cronies, and one or two others whom she hadn’t planned to kill but who apparently thought she was out to get them. For them, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many of the nobles had drawn back, watching, waiting to see who her fury would fall upon next.

When she had impaled Emizoe with a lunge, she held the position for a moment as he slid to the floor, then straightened to gaze levelly at the living. “I trust there will be no other objections to my rule.”

There was no audible dissent, and she caught a fierce smile of approval from her mother, and the beginnings of proper respect from many of the others. The soldiers behind them quietly moved from combat-readiness to ceremonial attention. She strode past them all to the throne, though she didn’t sit in it. It was an ugly throne, not suited to her. She needed a new one, needed to redecorate this room, immediately. Beginning tomorrow, even. She fixed them with a stern look, chin high, arms loose at her sides. “Make no mistake, I am here to stay. Calamit provided stability; Kadolan promised new life. I am both, and I will take Kuat to new heights for the glory of the Empire. Impede me, and you will be removed swiftly. Work with me, and we shall all prosper.”

“Hail, Darth Akuliina, Lord of Kuat,” they said, and she was satisfied.

She turned to the veiled woman in the hoverchair. “Now that the opening festivities are over, I would like to introduce you to my new chancellor.” She felt the curiosity of everyone, probing at her, and reveled in the anticipation. “How are you, Feuseldt?”

The woman lifted her veil, revealing braided red hair and a deceptively placid face. “I am well, Lord Akuliina. Nicely done.” Akuliina shrugged

“Feuseldt- Feuseldt Kadolan?” she heard gasped and murmured from the crowd. Even Quinn seemed surprised – well, she hadn’t told him anything about this. His sphere was military, not political.

Feuseldt shook her head. “I am Feuseldt Kuat once again.”

“And in case you missed it, she is my chancellor,” Akuliina said. “Torring, if you have any objections, tell them to my apprentice.” The former chancellor blanched and bowed. Jaesa snickered. “Now, come before me, house by house, so that I may speak with you and know you.”

As her subjects formed a line, Quinn edged closer to her momentarily. “My lady, how…?” he murmured, his stoic deadpan perfect but his mind roiling with questions.

She smirked a little at him. “I’ll fill you in later, Commodore. But to answer your most pressing question, yes.” Yes, Feuseldt was the right decision… for now.

She’d been cramming economics reports earlier in the day, in a tower of the palace, with only Pierce and Broonmark to guard her door. When she heard Broonmark warble-snarl, she looked up. She had thought no one would find her here, and it didn’t sound like it was Vette or Quinn. “Who is it?” She didn’t feel overt hostility, so she wasn’t completely paying attention. She was finding it hard to concentrate anyway, and was considering blaming it on the baby. Why’d she agreed to continue this pregnancy again?

“Some crippled woman, my lord,” Pierce said through the door. “She’s asking to see you. Demanding, even.”

“I thought I said I’m not to be disturbed. Send her away.”

“Akuliina Volkova!” cried a voice, and Akuliina stiffened momentarily before she sprang to her feet, smacked the door control, and stepped forward, one lightsaber clenched in an angry fist.

“Feuseldt Kadolan,” she growled. “You’ve saved me tracking you down to kill you, at least.”

Evryn’s widow sat in a hoverchair, dressed entirely in indigo blue as the colour of death and mourning on Kuat, with a veil over her head that was cast back to reveal her face. She showed no sign of fear at Akuliina’s anger, which only made her angrier. “I wonder if you injured yourself on purpose so you wouldn’t have to grovel to me for your husband’s crimes. It won’t avail you.”

She reached out to drag Feuseldt from her chair with the Force, but Feuseldt reached out her own hand in a futile, Force-less attempt to stop her. “I was injuring protecting you!”

She stopped. “How’s that?”

“I’ve been working against Evryn since I learned he was trying to kill you. May I tell you the story?”

Akuliina lowered her arm and huffed a pout. “I suppose you may. As swiftly as possible, please.” She stood aside and gestured for Feuseldt to enter the room she’d been reading in, nodded to Pierce, and keyed the door closed and locked.

Feuseldt arranged herself across from the console Akuliina had been reading from, recovering her dignity. Akuliina threw herself down on her own chair and crossed her knees. “Begin.”

“You know the beginning, I think,” her former acquaintance said. “Evryn Kadolan came to me first through you, on behalf of his father.”

“And you married Konris Kadolan.”

“I did. But when Evryn returned a little over three months ago, the first thing he did was dispose of his father. The second thing he did was take me as his wife.”

“And what did that gain him?”

“Control of half the fleet,” Feuseldt said very matter-of-factly. “I thought you knew; I may despise leaving home, but my family is very influential in Kuat’s economy. Captain Lannes, who aided your Commodore, is my cousin.”

“And you control this personally?” Akuliina said. She’d known Feuseldt was important as the eldest daughter of the Kuat clan, she just hadn’t known specifically how. “And ordered them to assist the Commodore when I set my own plan in motion?”

“Precisely,” Feuseldt said, open, guileless.

Akuliina’s golden eyes narrowed. “Evryn said you wished to see me in chains. He made it sound like you were most eager to see me defeated so that you could crow over me.” It was possible he’d been lying to get some sort of reaction from her, he was a good liar… But without even telling her that Feuseldt was the one he was speaking of, even gloating over her ignorance of his wife, what would that accomplish?

“The middle of the story is a little more complicated than the beginning and end,” Feuseldt said, bowing her head. “I supported my husband fully against Calamit. I helped him raise recruits, resources, information. The old man had held Kuat long enough; it was time for someone new, younger, with new vision and energy. Even I could see that, and Evryn was… well, you might know as well. He was so daring, confident, but intelligent – or I thought he was. And then, the same day that he declared his war on Calamit, he attempted to kill you.”

“I vaguely recall that,” Akuliina said sardonically. “So you had nothing to do with that.”

“Not at all. I didn’t even know until a few days later, when his next attempt to kill you failed and he grumbled about it. That was when my opinion of him began to change.”

“So you say,” Akuliina said. “Then what?”

“I was upset, for several reasons. On the one hand, he knew that you would undoubtedly come to kill him someday, possibly even as soon as you knew he was still alive. I didn’t even consider what you might think until I heard him speak of you again. And I don’t think he had a choice in attacking you and Calamit simultaneously, to take you both by surprise. However… since you escaped, he simply brought your wrath down upon himself. He could not hope to replace you to the Dark Council, and I feared he would ruin Kuat in fighting both of you for a prolonged period. He only wanted power; he didn’t care about our world. Not like you do. Any world would have done for him; this was only the one he had the best chance at.”

“You think I care about Kuat?” Akuliina asked curiously.

Feuseldt nodded. “I remember how you spoke as a girl. You have pride in this world. Surely the short time between then and now has not completely eroded your feelings, despite your apparent disinterest since you left. Not only that, but I still… thought fondly of you, though you may not believe it.”

“Whatever I believe of your feelings pales in comparison to my impatience now,” Akuliina said. “You realize I have other things to do today.” She tapped the console impatiently. If she didn’t have some semblance of a solid plan to bring before the court, they’d reject her as a child as surely as Calamit had.

“Very well. After I learned of your… landing on Myrkr, I began my plan to bring you back. I did ask to see you in chains. I pestered him, claimed I hated you, that I wanted to see you humbled before you were killed.” Akuliina’s nostrils flared slightly. “And it worked, to some extent. He agreed to attempt to capture you and bring you before me, at which point I would have released you.”

Akuliina was silent for a moment, processing what that meant for her history. She and her companions were all in Feuseldt’s debt, but not as much as if her plan had come to its full fruition. “You would have supported me in killing him?”

“Yes. You are distractable, ego-driven, and callous as any other Sith, but in the end he was worse.” Feuseldt offered a wry smile. “For those of us without the Force, we must do what we can to ensure that anything we value survives.”

“So, you save my life by pretending to desire its end, betray the person who ought to be one of your closest allies, and insult me to my face,” Akuliina said. “I like you, and I hate you. I can make use of you, and I don’t trust you farther than you can walk at the moment. How were you injured again?”

“Evryn realized I’d ordered ‘his’ fleet to aid yours, and flung me down a flight of stairs before leaving to fight you.” Feuseldt shrugged. “I got off quite easily, all things considered. He threatened to dispose of me when he returned, but I thought it quite likely that he wouldn’t return.” She leaned forward suddenly with another dry smile. “If you ever marry, Akuliina, never, ever trust your spouse. Even if they’re not Sith.”

Akuliina snorted. “If I marry, Feuseldt. If.”

“In any case, I am getting rid of the Kadolan surname. I have no loyalty to his house, not now that it is defunct, and I’d much rather be Feuseldt Kuat again.”

“As you wish, I don’t care.”

She considered. She couldn’t just dispose of Feuseldt. ‘Pushing her down the stairs and making it look like an accident’ wouldn’t fly. Neither would Feuseldt simply disappearing; she would undoubtedly have left knowledge of her location with someone. Perhaps she was even transmitting her bio data to her base at this moment. Certainly, she could deal with the fallout… but it would be bad to begin her reign this way.

And Feuseldt was clever. She could use someone with the cunning to outsmart her own husband without even the Force. Someone who most people didn’t think much of, someone who could pull strings behind the scenes despite her seclusion.

She swung back to Feuseldt with a devilish grin. “Well, I think I’ve worked out your reward – or punishment, if you like.”

The older woman blinked, trying not to look alarmed. “I await your word, my lord.”

“You will be my chancellor.” Feuseldt’s jaw dropped and Akuliina cackled. It was worth it for that reaction.

“M-my lord, I don’t understand.”

Akuliina shrugged. “You don’t have to.” But she could already see Feuseldt thinking out the implications. She was a clever enough woman that if she ever turned on Akuliina, she might see it coming as little as Evryn had. If elimination wasn’t a good option, then keeping her close was. Treat her well enough, give her enough real power in addition to what she already wielded, and she wouldn’t want to betray her. Even though Feuseldt had wished for revolution, she also wished for stability. She didn’t worry about whether Feuseldt would approve of her plans or not. Show enough responsibility, and she’d tag along eagerly enough. They all would.

And the old chancellor might retain some loyalty to Calamit. She didn’t want that. She should probably kill him at some point, in fact.

Feuseldt shook her head. “I don’t suppose I have much of a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” Akuliina said. “However, declining would only make things more difficult for everyone. Accept, and we both benefit.”

“I don’t know how much use I will be. I hate interacting with most people.”

“Do you have to interact with people? Shun the court and become an eccentric surrounded by droids for all I care. But I wouldn’t have made this decision if I thought you would fail.” Idly, she supposed she could have appointed Feuseldt to a job she was completely unqualified for, then kill her for failing, but that would have been stupidly transparent.

Feuseldt straightened in her hoverchair. “In that case, I accept. I’m not completely comfortable with the idea, but I suppose it’s a better fate than being Evryn’s _wife_.”

“Glad you concur,” Akuliina said sardonically. “Now, I’m trying to figure out who gets priority on reconstruction, post-reconstruction investment, and new contracts. I understand you’ll be biased towards your family, and I am towards mine. I mean besides that. Does Captain Lannes have any preferences?”

“I will ask. Discretely. And I have some observations of my own.” Feuseldt pulled a datapad out of the arm of her hoverchair and began to tap at it. “Before we get too deep into that, however, I have information you may find of value. Do you know Emizoe Deespen?”

Meeting the nobles was both tedious and uneasy. Even the ones she’d known before had cautious minds, uncertain what she’d do next. They hadn’t expected her to win against Calamit, didn’t know what she was like as a ruler.

Except her mother, who should have been perfectly contented with the way things were going, but despite her smiles, her mind was clouded, too, and Akuliina couldn’t tell why.

But she smiled back at all of them, and let not a hint of her own thoughts break through. Always watching, evaluating, judging which of them would be good allies and advisors and which she could ignore in the future. Which ones would turn on her the fastest, despite her display of strength earlier.

She spoke first to Morgan Kuat, Feuseldt’s mother, the head of the Kuat clan. They had been third in power after the Volkovs and the Kadolans, even though they were the oldest noble family on the planet. Now they were second, since her mother still controlled the Volkov estates. Still, anyone in power on Kuat would do well to gain their esteem.

Morgan thanked her for not only sparing her daughter, but for elevating her so high as well. She sensed confusion and suspicion in amongst the gratitude, and resolved not to dissipate it. Morgan could underestimate her own daughter all she liked, could believe that Feuseldt and Akuliina were closer than they actually were; it just meant she could be kept easily manipulable. And if it were necessary to reveal the truth one day, then she would. But not yet.

The line of nobles slowly made their way past her, and she heard their names and houses again, putting personalities to the names and faces she’d read about that morning. She stayed out of arm’s reach and wished she’d paid a little more attention to the intricacies of court when she was a teenager. Back then, she’d learned enough to get her way, to have her fun, and only a little more to support her father’s agenda. But it was the same, only larger-scale, wasn’t it? And of course, with no way to mitigate her visibility. She allowed no sign of her doubts to appear in her body, her spirit. There were enough minor Sith around. Besides, she wouldn’t fail.

And then, once she’d learned of all the nobles present, and heard a little of those not present, would come one of the more fun parts, where she got to tell them some of her plans. Plans to rebuild what had been lost over the last month of conflict, plans to expand the economy, plans to expand the Empire’s fleets, to prepare for the war that was surely coming soon. And to make it autonomous enough that she wouldn’t be too distracted while assisting in the rule of the Empire. And yet not so autonomous that people could claim she didn’t rule, that she abandoned her duties to subordinates. Managing her estate while quashing a rebellion had been simple enough. Managing a whole planet… not so simple. She would have to delegate well. Feuseldt would have to delegate well.

She was returning to the head of the room to tell them all about it when she whirled, lightsabers blazing to life just in time to block a blow from a violet double-bladed saber. She felt surprise roll through her, too rapidly to be checked. “Mother?”

 _Why now? What was she doing?_ She was forcing her final confrontation too soon, and then Akuliina would need to find someone to administer her father’s- her estate.

Everyone was watching. They had expected it even less than she had, and they were backing away rapidly – though her companions were edging forward. There was no need. This was not their fight.

Her mother was laughing softly. “I almost had you, darling. You know better than to let your guard down here.”

“You hardly had me,” Akuliina said, contemptuous. “You are no match for me.” She drove Mareet back, not yet striking to kill, but to dominate, intimidate, and her Darkness poured out of her, overpowering her mother’s sense. She had thought to forestall these challenges to her power, at least from beginning so soon, and she had not expected it to come from so close. She should have seen it coming. Her mother was probably trying to sacrifice herself to solidify Akuliina’s position with her court, in addition to forcing her hand in her inheritance. After all, the apprentice of her rival she was expected to kill, but if she could kill her own mother, who else was safe from her?

The lightsaber twirled and shimmered, leaving brilliant trails through the darkness. Akuliina took as wide a stance as she could in her dress, her guard impenetrable, preparing for the inevitable. “If I’m so weak, then destroy me!” her mother cried, breathing hard.

Akuliina set her face, steeling herself, then struck her mother’s guard aside and ran her through to the hilt.

Mareet Volkova made a tiny pained sound from behind locked teeth, dropping her lightsaber and holding her midriff. Akuliina waited a breath more to be certain the fight was gone from her, then dropped to her knees beside her, holding her as she collapsed to the ground, her life ebbing away from her swiftly. “Mother, you fool…”

“No, this is… this is right,” her mother breathed. “Now there will… be no excuses… no distractions – you will be the… Empire’s flame… as you were… born to be.”

Akuliina leaned in very close. “I had wished…” She dropped her voice to a near inaudible whisper. “I wish you could have met… my child.”

A faint smile blossomed on her mother’s lips. “That was… the last thing… that could make… me happy. Rule well, my daughter. Father and I will… watch you.”

Her head fell back, and her Force-sense faded completely.

She needed a moment – only a moment – to compose herself, then turned to the silent observers.

“And now,” she said, with a slightly twisted, triumphant smile, “let us commence the rebirth of Kuat.”

A little over a year later, two ships crouched in a clearing of a forest on a small, unnoteworthy planet. One looked remarkably like the Fury; the Fury II was even faster and fiercer than her predecessor. The other looked like a tub with engines attached.

“You sure about this?” Vette asked doubtfully, cuddling the sleeping infant close to her. She wasn’t a girl anymore, but a young woman, for all that she was blue and had tentacles for hair. “It’s your last chance to change your mind.”

“I’m not changing my mind,” Akuliina, Lord of Kuat, said firmly, squeezing Quinn’s hand reassuringly. “It’s too dangerous to raise her on Kuat or Dromund Kaas. The court at home still hasn’t completely accepted me yet, and there are those on Dromund Kaas who would love to see me fall somehow. I trust you more than anyone else. When it’s time, you can bring her back home.”

“And you promise to visit, right?” Vette said. “I don’t want her thinking I’m her mom somehow.”

“We promise,” Quinn said, his voice almost perfectly steady. “As much as we can without arousing suspicion.”

“Which should be fairly frequent, given my job,” Akuliina said. “Twice a year, probably, as I said before.”

“Well… okay. I don’t know why I let you talk me into this.”

“Because it’s an adventure,” Akuliina said, smiling a trifle smugly. She’d asked Vette nicely, and not really expecting a positive answer: surely, with the Kadolan conflict resolved, she’d wish to return to her friends on Nar Shaddaa. But Vette had been intrigued by the mission as Akuliina had described it. And if she tired of the duty… perhaps by then Akuliina would have found a substitute. “It’s only ten years.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The baby stirred, and Vette bent her head, cooing into her white hair. “It’s okay, Zana, it’s okay. Just saying goodbye to Mommy and Daddy.”

Little Snyezana’s eyes opened, revealing deep blue, and for a moment Akuliina wanted to take her back. Her eyes were just like her father’s. Who knows if they’d stay that way; she was only six months old, but still…

She must stay strong, and turned her attention to Vette. “Take care of her.”

“I will,” Vette said solemnly, and turned away to the little ship she was to live in for the next decade. It looked beat-up and trashy on the outside, but her engines, sensors, and weapons were all state-of-the-art. If anything caught her, it wouldn’t be from lack of preparation.

“Goodbye,” Quinn called, waving to his daughter. She should say something too, she should-

“Goodbye,” she blurted out, and heard Snyezana squeal sleepily, vaguely unhappy at being separated from her mother’s Force-sense. Vette turned one last time and waved Snyezana’s tiny hand at them, then disappeared into the ship.


End file.
